













































Class 



Book _ i^L 

Copyright >1 ° n i 


COPHUGHT DEPOSIT. 


♦ 
























73 ? 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 




♦ 


I 
















RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


BY 

KENNETH PERKINS 

AUTHOR OF “THE BELOVED BRUTE” 


FRONTISPIECE BY 

CHARLES DURANT 



NEW YORK 

THE MACAULAY COMPANY 


T& 


Copyright, 1923 

Br THE MACAULAY COMPANY 


* » # 

♦ 

•> 

OCT -9 1923 

P-3 - 138 ?? 


PRINTED Ilf THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 





©C1A7G0273 

' 1 , £ \ 


F. S. FAUST 




“Pull leather and give up!” they cried. “You’ll be up in the 

stars next.” 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I The Sunfisher . . . 

• 


r»; 


PAGE 

9 

II 

Riding the Crater . . 


»• 

r» 

• 

18 

III 

The Quest .... 





30 

IV 

The Guide .... 





49 

V 

The Desert’s Horizon . 





56 

VI 

Henry Sugg’s Farewell . 





70 

VII 

The Three-Headed Henchman 




76 

VIII 

Lingo Bows to the Fear-sway 




85 

IX 

Peter Gets His Posse 



. 


97 

X 

Drury Awakes 





110 

XI 

Drury Sees His Crimes . 




>■ 

120 

XII 

The Accused .... 





132 

XIII 

Peter’s Messenger . . 





138 

XIV 

The Eastern Gap . . . 



*•* 


149 

XV 

Desolation Town > . 




:• 

163 

XVI 

Portia. 



. 


174 

XVII 

The Defense .... 




> 

182 

XVIII 

The Verdict of Jennie Lee 

vii 





206 











CONTENTS 


• • • 

Vlll 

CHAPTER 

XIX Gaunt Starts the Chase 

XX The Gila Introduces Himself . . 

XXI Drury Guns for the Three Heads 

XXII The Shaft.. 

XXIII Drury’s Return . . . . r . ; w 

XXIV Jennie Lee Finds Her Home . ™ 

XXV Peter Gaunt Sees Red . . > r « 

XXVI Drury’s Ridb ..... >. . 
XXVII Starlight and Spurs . . . . 

XXVIII The Crater Blows Up . . 

XXIX “Well, That Settles It!” . 


PAGE 

213 

218 

223 

242 

251 

263 

274 

280 

288 

300 

307 






RIDE HIM, COWBOY 




“RIDE HIM, COWBOY” 


CHAPTER I 

THE SUNFISHER 

The city sand lot was suddenly transformed into 
a populous arena. In the crowd of business men 
there were a few ranchers wearing sombreros, a 
few with campaign hats. There were some women 
in blue gingham, a Choctaw poking his nose out of 
a glaring red blanket, a fat girl in squaw’s waist 
and yellow skirt, and finally the thrill that always 
comes with a mob, any sort of mob. 

Waitresses and stenographers leaned from all 
the windows into the beating glare of the sun. A 
Mexican who kept his chowcart in the lot stopped 
peeling onions, and his clientele of tramps let their 
tamales turn to cold grease. A few stockmen from 
the shipping station sat on a fence, silent and skep¬ 
tical. A cowboy stood before a tremendous tobacco 

sign which occupied the entire side of a building. 

9 


* 


10 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


The cowboy was the only ambassador there of 
the cattle country; rangy, broad-shouldered, wear¬ 
ing a curious yellow sombrero with a Hopi design 
of skulls and the thunderbird. 

The ^assembly was gathered together, as many 
such assemblies had gathered in ages past, to wit¬ 
ness the execution of a famous criminal. This time 
the criminal was a horse that had “gone bad.” 

In the center of the lot stood a heavy-boned 
black gelding, its stubborn, ornery, Roman nose 
a foot from the tarweed of the ground. “Crater” 
was too large to be termed a cow-pony, too chunky 
for a racer. At first glance it would have seemed 
that he was good for only one thing—the wheel 
horse to a cannon limber. Huge and heavy, he 
stood over more ground than an ordinary cart- 
drawer; a good-sized hoof without the density of 
horn of a Percheron, and a large barrel with a fine 
spread of ribs. Although he appeared indolent 
and dejected, there was a certain red gleam in his 
eye that seemed to show there was one thing in the 
world which would set him off—the sound of gun 
shooting. 

A runty half-breed—Mexican and Yuman— 
dressed in a baggy suit and lop-brimmed hat, acted 





THE SUNFISHER 


11 


as wrangler, holding the beast’s headstall at arm’s 
dength. Only one other person went near the out¬ 
lawed nag: a girl with brown woebegone eyes and 
a piquant face, on which, temporarily, there was 
written all the sorrow of the chief and only 
mourner of the condemned criminal. 

It was plain to be seen that nobody else in that 
mob proposed to shed a tear for the black Crater. 
The general atmosphere, in fact, was one of ex¬ 
treme festivity. The excitement and yipping was 
more suggestive of the feature event of a round-up 
than of an execution. But under the giant Bull 
Durham sign there was perhaps one person other 
than the girl who felt the seriousness of the 
situation. 

To the cow-puncher who had come to witness the 
death of Crater the scene had an element of the 
tragic. To him the death of a horse—particularly 
the death of a famous man-killer—was as porten¬ 
tous certainly as the hanging of some half-breed 
brand-blotcher. In the minds of puncher-boys it 
must be said a horse has a soul, whereas a Mexican 
rustler has not. In fact, just as the girl put her 
hand frantically upon the six-gun which the wran- 





12 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


gler had drawn, the cowboy edged his way through 
the crowd and walked up to the center of the lot. 

The girl’s brown eyes had welled with tears, 
which now began to flow down over her cheeks. 
The cowman took off his broad-brimmed hat, and, 
as the crowd began to laugh at him, he dug the 
toe of a huge boot into the sand. The big face red¬ 
dened furiously, all except his nose, which, like his 
neck, was already the redness of beefsteak. It was 
a Roman nose and it suggested something of the 
cussedness of the condemned broncho. 

“It don’t appear to me, miss, as if you’re crazy 
to see that critter stretched out.” 

The girl’s face brightened. The cowman for the 
first time saw how every feature seemed to light 
up, reflecting perfectly a succession of desires: 
hopelessness and then hope, admiration, an auda¬ 
cious and then a bashful smile, and confidence. 

“I’m trying to reconcile myself to losing Crater,” 
she said. “But it’s no use! I simply can’t see him 
killed outright, particularly when he looks so for¬ 
lorn.” 

“Like as not he’s forlorn because he knows what’s 
coming to him,” the cowman remarked. 

“I’ve begged my grandfather to keep him in the 




THE SUNFISHER 


13 


stables, just as a pet, or to give him away, anything 
rather than kill him, but it’s useless. No one will 
take him. He killed one of the stable mozos last 
night. And as for his record in bucking-” 

“I’m a stranger here—never heard of him-” 

“Well, he’s finished three men.” 

The cow-puncher whistled and took a careful 
look at the dejected outlaw. After a quick ap¬ 
praisal of all the beast’s worst qualities he suddenly 
asked: 

“Where is your grandfather, miss?” 

“Why do you ask? He won’t let you go near 
the horse.” 

“I’m thinkin’ there might be a way,” the puncher 
said quietly. “There might be a way to spare you 
cryin’ any more about the cold-blooded murder of 
this man-fighter.” 

“You mean—you’ll take him off our hands and 
—and save him!” 

“Let’s see your granddad.” 

The girl’s grandfather had already heard the 
cowman introduce himself. He stepped forward, 
a brown derby cocked on one side of his head and 
his thumbs stuck arrogantly in a vest of bright 
green velvet embroidered with silk mignonettes. 







14 


RIDE HIM. COWBOY 


“My name is Peter Gaunt,” the silver-haired old 
fellow said, “and if you think you’re going to ball 
up my show, you’re mistaken.” 

“I hear you don’t intend bumping off that rope 
hoss if any one takes him off your hands.” 

“Did you say you would take that load of TNT 
off my hands?” the little old man asked irascibly. 
“If you did you’re mistaken. They ain’t a man in 
the State can go within ten feet of him.” 

“How about that wrangler?” 

“He’s got a strap around the critter’s lip. Be¬ 
sides, the old hoss knows he’s a Mex and not worth 
kicking.” 

“Well, in the first place,” the cowman retorted, 
“I’m not asking you for the horse. Don’t want 
him. I thought maybe the girl here would like him 
for a pet-” 

“Oh, you’re doing this for my gal, hey?” 

The cowman looked into the dancing blue eyes 
of the old man and reddened. 

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled. “A moment ago she 
was blubbering-” 

“You object to my gal blubberin’, hey?” 

“Yes, sir—I-” 

“Well, if you’re that kind of a bird you better 







THE SUNFISHER 


15 


not get into the same lot with this here hoss. He’ll 
bite you and paw you up so’s they’s nothin’ left 
but chopped meat for to make enchiladas. That 
hoss can tell a guy that’s shinin’ up to my little gal, 
no matter if he’s a mile off.” 

“Maybe he’ll let me ride him, then!” the buck* 
aroo suggested. 

This remark was greeted with a roar of laugh¬ 
ter from the ring of men forming around Gaunt, 
the girl and the cowboy. Old Gaunt himself took 
his thumbs out of his green vest and waved his 
hands frantically in the air as the cowman con¬ 
tinued: 

“I mean what I say—ride him! Gentle him! 
And turn him back to the girl. She wants him for 
a pet.” 

Gaunt took out a fat cigar, pointing it up to the 
cowman’s face. 

“Now, put this in your mouth and shut up,” he 
said. “I don’t want no fine young puncher-boy 
like you to get his back broke, particular if he 
wants to do it just to satisfy a whim of my little 
gab” 

“I’m repeatin’ what I said, Mr. Horse-owner!” 
the puncher affirmed aloud. “Slick ridin’. No 




16 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


hobbled stirrups, no locked spurs nor buckin’ 
rolls-” 

The crowd began to chime in with cries of “Ride 
’im, cowboy!” and “Let ’er kick!” “Even odds, 
Mistah Gaunt!” and “Five hundred the cowboy 
eats rattleweed!” 

Old Gaunt’s eyes danced. The chance of some 
good betting thrilled him, and he was always eager 
to see again a bit of the old frontier life he had 
lived. 

“Get your saddle,” he finally said. “If it’s for 
the little gal, I’ll let you do this. But afore you 
gits up to the hurricane deck I want to tell you 
what you’re in for.” 

By the yipping and cheers that followed this 
agreement the whole lot knew that the horse was 
going to be given another chance. News spread 
through the streets that old Crater, the man-killer, 
was going to be tried again—and by some stranger 
hailing from a Texas cow-ranch. The street on 
which the lot faced was soon crowded with wagons, 
buckboards and saddle ponies. Men and boys 
jammed the little sand knolls overlooking the hol¬ 
low of alkali and tarweed where the bronc-busting 





THE SUNFISHER 


17 


was to take place. Others filled every available 
door and window. 

The excitement grew to a hullabaloo of cheer¬ 
ing when the girl and the Mexican horse-boy, 
assisted by two mounted buckaroos, surrounded 
the black man-killer preparatory to blinding and 
saddling him. 

“When I tell you about that thar hoss,” old 
Gaunt said, “you’ll change your mind—and I’m 
going to give you a chanct to back out gracefully.” 

“I’m not going to change my mind,” the cow¬ 
man said. “I’m goin’ to ride ’im.” 




CHAPTER II 


RIDING THE CRATER 

Old Peter Gaunt and the cow-puncher stood 
aside, the latter smoking his new cigar and watch¬ 
ing with a whimsical composure the wrangling of 
the outlaw horse. 

“What is your name, Mr. Puncher-boy?” Gaunt 
asked. 

“Tom Drury, Jeff Davis County, Texas.” 

“And your outfit?” 

“The Tumbling Ace Cow Farm.” 

“Never heard of you, but the Tumbling Ace is 
famous in these parts. Have you any heirs?” 

Drury looked down at the old man and burst 
into a chuckle. “What do you want to know for?” 

“When a bronco-peeler undertakes to ride Crater 
it’s an important point to settle up concernin’ their 
heirs. Now I’m supportin’ the families of three 
men right now which thought they could do some 
show-ridin’ on that thar hoss. And I’m figurin’ on 
supportin’ yourn.” 


18 


RIDING THE CRATER 


19 


“I haven’t got any.” 

“Or heirs or assigns?” 

“I’m not figurin’ on givin’ in to the horse.” 

“Very well, then, if your mind’s set on ridin’ 
him I’m goin’ to tell you in plain terms what you’re 
going to ride. The dam of that thar hoss belonged 
to a old Yaqui chief which rode her into battle 
down in Mexico a short while back. The mare 
warn’t a cayuse. She was a war horse bred from 
a cattle pony out of a racer. She carried one hun¬ 
dred and ninety pounds into gunfire ten weeks 
before foaling. When she foaled she gives the 
world this carcass of dynamite. A cattleman on 
the Rio Grande made a mistake and took the crit¬ 
ter for a gift. For the first time in the world the 
Indian didn’t take his gift back. The cattleman 
sells him to a round-up show concern, and I finally 
win him on the short end of a phony bet. Ever 
since he’s brought trouble. There ain’t a rancher 
in the State will buy that hoss from me, and what’s 
made it worse, the critter has showed a liking to 
my little gal there. She’s begged that I keep it in 
the stables, which I granted, until he killed a stable 
mozo for tryin’ to feed him. Damn it, every bone 
in that horse, from his jaw to his pastern, ain’t a 




20 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


bone—it’s a stick of dynamite—and it’ll blow up 
if you so much as chuck to it!” 

Up until now Crater had shown no particular 
interest in the cautious maneuverings of the wran¬ 
glers who were to saddle him. It seemed, as the 
girl herself remarked, that the horse knew he had 
been condemned. He had stared dejectedly and 
vacantly before him, conscious of the fact that 
every one there was his enemy, except the girl, and 
that she had suddenly proved herself unreliable. 
She was now on the “other side.” She who always 
maintained that Crater was wiser than any man 
would admit, said that he seemed to be waiting for 
some eleventh-hour friend to save him from de¬ 
struction. 

Tom Drury was that friend, but the old horse, 
judging by his actions from then on, did not seem 
to admit it. 

The men on foot knew that it was too dangerous 
to attempt to bridle the animal. This must be left 
to the two men mounted on snubbing ponies. The 
Mexican gave the rope to one of these horsemen, 
who passed it with one hitch about the horn of 
the saddle. 

Crater immediately sensed trouble. He backed 






RIDING THE CRATER 


21 


away as the snubbing horse sidled up to him, the 
rider taking in the slack of the rope as fast as he 
could. When old Crater’s nose was drawn to 
within a yard of the saddle horn, the outlaw 
changed his mind about backing away. 

Instead, he stood up on his hind feet and struck 
out viciously at the wrangler. The latter, to save 
his thigh and foot from being crushed, jumped out 
of his saddle, clinging to one side of his pony so 
as to keep it between himself and the outlaw’s 
fore-striking hoofs. While in this position the 
wrangler reached across his horse’s back, yanked 
the snubbing rope and gave it a final hitch about 
the saddle horn. Crater thudded his hoofs into 
the belly of the snubbing pony and would have 
pounded the little animal to the ground if the 
wrangler had not succeeded in blinding the out¬ 
law by stuffing a small gunnysack under the cheek 
straps. The Mexican now ran forward, dug his 
clawlike fingers into the nose of the blinded horse, 
and Crater, for a few moments at least, gave in, 
snorting and champing in bewilderment. 

“Now, look here, Mr. Stranger,” old Gaunt said 
to Drury, as the latter stepped down to the horse, 
“afore you make up your mind once and for 




22 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


all to set on that thar animal, I want to tell 
you somethin’. You can stick on lots of bucking 
horses by outguessing ’em. I mean by that, watch¬ 
ing their muscles which tell you just what sort of 
a jump they’re goin’ to pull off next. But this 
here hoss don’t give any such comfortable warning. 
Only a month ago Johnson Hawk, a Sioux cham¬ 
pion buster, was throwed and trampled by old 
Crater—Johnson Hawk, who’s won silver-studded 
saddles from every round-up between Texas and 
North Dakota. He tried to hook his knees into 
Crater’s belly, and found the damned horse wam’t 
there! Johnson smashed his ribs on the horn of 
the saddle and then smashed his neck on a snubbin’ 

post fifteen feet away. If Hawk did that, what do 

✓ 

you reckon you can do?” 

“Stay set,” was the quiet reply, “and ride him.” 

Drury went down into the pit of the lot amid 
cheers and clapping. And Gaunt’s granddaughter 
took his hand in a final shake. “Hoping you’ll 
win,” she cried enthusiastically. 

“And not pull leather,” he assured her. 

Gaunt shook his head skeptically and joined his 
daughter on the top of the sand knolls. Jennie Lee 
was perhaps the only one there who did not look 




RIDING THE CRATER 


23 


at the conflict with the sheer heartless desire to see 
a horse and a man in desperate conflict To her the 
episode would perhaps mean the saving of her 
horse, and hence her interest in Tom Drury was 
not merely the interest of a woman for a devil- 
may-care, hell-beni hero. 

She watched the big cowboy walk down to the 
beast and order the two horsemen, who were 
standing by, to hold the horse’s head while he 
took a final look at the cinch. The riders on the 
snubbing ponies who were to act as “pick-up men,” 
should that be necessary after the fight, held the 
outlaw’s rope taut, preparatory to yanking off the 

blind. Drury, after examining the saddle, stepped 

* 

to the blinded horse, and dug his wiry fingers into 
the soft nose. 

“Smell of that hand, old Mr. Outlaw!” he said. 
“I’m going to ride you all over hell!” 

He shouted to the wranglers to give him a halter 
rope and a good straightaway for the first buck. 
He leaped, pony-express fashion, onto the horse’s 
back, found his stirrups, and yelled at the wran¬ 
glers to let him kick. The two little ponies were 
wheeled where they stood, and spurred off to the 
edge of the lot. 




24 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


The outlaw stood a moment, as if blinded by 
the sudden glare of the sun and the ring of 
shouting faces about him. He seemed uncertain* 
for the fraction of a second, what to do about that 
vise which was squeezing into his flanks. 

“He must know now that we’re giving him an¬ 
other chance,” the girl said to old Gaunt. “He 
must know that the bronc-buster is trying to save 
his life.” 

“But he ain’t appreciatin’ it overmuch,” said 
Gaunt. 

Jennie Lee looked back. The big black outlaw 
had kicked off into a series of straightaway bucks* 
as if the cowman had stuck two red-hot spurs into 
his stomach. The girl saw that Drury had taken 
off his sombrero and was fanning the air with 
one hand while with the other he jerked up the 
horse’s head closer with every buck. 

“The cowboy will stay on if Crater doesn’t try 
his sunfishing!” the girl cried. 

“Damned if the boy didn’t scratch him. He’s 
sunfishing now!” 

Old Crater stopped short in his straightaway 
buck, in which he had sent the crowd at one end 
of the lot scattering like a swarm of flies. He came 




RIDING THE CRATER 


25 


with all his force upon his forefeet and then sprang 
backward, twisting in the air like a salmon caught 
on a hook. Drury was jerked halfway out of his 
saddle, his hat fell from his hand, and he grabbed 
frantically for the lost reins. 

A silence fell on the crowd as they suddenly 
felt that the same old tragedy was to be reenacted. 

For a moment horse and rider were lost in a 
cloud of dust, only the terrific thudding of the 
hoofs breaking the sudden hush. The girl strained 
her eyes, facing the sun, and saw the silhouette of 
the horse merging through the alkali mist. The 
rider was still clinging to the saddle, his head 
rocking back at every pitch with enough force, it 
seemed to the girl, to snap his neck. 

Crater saw that he would have to try something 
else. The downright shock which came after his 
skyscraping was then coupled with a sidewise lurch 
at the very second when the rider was recovering 
his balance. The girl, as she watched, could de¬ 
tect each change of plan in the horse’s mind. When 
Crater performed the side throw it had nearly 
always finished his antagonists. If that failed, 
the girl anticipated the next move. 

She screamed frantically to the rider to give up. 




26 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Other voices joined in the shout and the din 
swelled. 

“Pull leather and give up!” they called. “You’ll 
be up in the stars next!” But most of the voices 
were raised in cheers: “Stay with him, cowboy! 
Ride him! Bust him! Scratch his hide off’n 
him!” 

The girl caught a glimpse of Drury just before 
the horse’s most desperate move. The boy’s head 
was snapped up from his chest until it seemed his 
skull rocked back into his shoulder blades; his 
mouth and nose were bleeding, and his face black¬ 
ened with dust. Then it was that old Crater tried 
his ugliest trick. He leaped into the air, twisted, 
and came down, giving the rider a combined down¬ 
right shock and side wrench; and then fell back¬ 
wards. 

Drury snapped one foot out of the stirrups to 
save his leg from being crushed, and as the horse 
rolled he again grabbed the reins, winding them 
about his hand with a twist. Crater fell to his 
side, pawing wildly into the air. He felt again 
the crunching of the bit in his tongue, and the 
rowel of his rider’s free foot digging into his 




RIDING THE CRATER 


27 


stomach. It was Drury’s chance to free his other 
foot and run for safety. 

The crowd shouted wildly when they saw that 
instead of freeing himself, he clung to the horse’s 
head with one arm, and drew the reins up with 
the other. The horse, writhing and pawing for a 
moment in the dust, shaking his head wildly with 
the torment of the bit, gave a final convulsive 
twist which brought him to his feet, and the cow¬ 
boy, one leg hooked over the saddle, an arm about 
the horse’s neck, was still clinging on. 

When Crater regained his feet he gazed around 
at the yelling faces of the mob. His eyes bulged 
with rage and bafflement, his nostrils widened with 
vicious snorts. For the first time, as Jennie herself 
saw. Crater knew that he was mastered. He dug a 
groove into the dust as he tried vainly to loosen 
his mouth from the inexorable torture of the bit. 
Reddened foam flecked his torn lips, and his 
shaggy flanks were covered with lather and the 
dust where he had rolled. 

The girl saw that the outlaw had given up. A 
prance or two, a moment’s champing, one last 
curvet, and he stood panting and heaving with his 
head drawn up tight against his throat. 




28 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Drury beckoned to the wranglers, who rode up 
and grasped the reins under the mouth. When 
they had the horse securely snubbed, the cowboys 
dismounted in a deafening ovation of applause. 

“The horse is yourn!” old Gaunt shouted, shak¬ 
ing Drury’s hand. 

“It’s for the girl,” Drury replied. 

“It’s yours,” the girl herself repeated. “I 
wanted its life saved. You are the only man that 
can ride it. The horse is your reward.” 

“I didn’t do this business for a reward.” 

“You did it for that gal, if I understand cor¬ 
rectly,” old Gaunt said with twinkling eyes. 

“Yes, you understood correctly.” 

“Well, do you reckon you’d do it again?” 

“Certainly I would.” 

“If she gave you a chance, would you do some¬ 
thing else—something that has more danger—even 
than the buckin’ of that thar outlaw?” 

Tom Drury looked puzzled for a moment, and 
then glanced down at the face of the girl. She 
herself seemed dumbfounded at her grandfather’s 
remarks. Tom had a good long look at her brown 
eyes shining with excitement, her flushed, delicate 
skin, her full half-parted lips. The smile that she 





RIDING THE CRATER 


29 


gave him was the curious, wondering smile of a 
woman who has seen a man of unlimited power. 
It was like the ancient smiles of Greek women who 
looked upon horsemen and worshiped them as 
centaurs. When he saw that smile the bronc- 
twirling, big-boned youth laughed back his answer 
to the old man’s question: “Why, yes, I reckon 
I’ll do anything—anything you say.” 




CHAPTER III 


THE QUEST 

“It’s a long ride I’m goin’ to ask you to take,” 
Peter Gaunt said to the cow-puncher. “And 
there’s no horse in the country better fitted for it 
than the horse you just busted. That old outlaw 
looks to me like he’d be the fastest range rider 
in the West. The best description you can give 
him is that he’s a horse for to go killin’ with. With 
him you can ride circles around any Mexican’s 
cayuse on this or the other side of the Rio Grande. 
You can get in and out of range at will, choosing 
your time for fighting and your time for quitting. 
Bearin’ those facts in mind, and also the general 
impression you yourself made on me on first sight. 
I’m goin’ to give this here outlaw to you for a 
certain reason, and I’m going to tell you that reason 
up to my hotel.” 

Gaunt returned to his men and gave them direc¬ 
tions to put a brand-new, silver-studded, hand- 

carved saddle on Crater’s back. Meanwhile the 

30 


THE QUEST 


31 


girl took Tom Drury to the hotel in the buckboarch 

“Grandfather has his own mount and will follow 
us,” she said. 

In another moment they were clattering down 
the main street of the city through the dispersing 
crowd, cheering behind them as they passed. 

“I know what this quest is to be,” the girl said. 
“And I want to tell you what it really means to 
us. What I am going to tell I know my grand¬ 
father will not speak of, because he is too proud. 
It is a quest which means everything to him—to 
his honor—to his name, his life.” 

“What I am going to do, then, is for Peter 
Gaunt?” Tom asked with a note of obvious disap¬ 
pointment. 

The girl laughed softly. “Grandfather asked if 
you would do another deed like the breaking of 
Crater—only something infinitely more danger- 

99 

ous- 

“For you—those were his words.” 

“Yes. It means as much for me—only in a 
different way. But the tragic part of it concerns 
him. You see, he is one of the old stock, and all 
the people around here look up to him as being 
of an old fighting line of frontiersmen: his father 






32 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


was a famous old sheriff. Grandfather himself 
has served as the chief of the Vigilantes for years 
and years. Even before I was bom the people 
looked up to him as a sort of protector. He knows 
this, and there is nothing that would make him 
happier than to think now that he is growing too 
old for fighting—that he could justify what they 
think of him. And here is where the pathos of it 
all comes: a bandit has been terrorizing the range 
just beyond the desert to the west. He has a band, 
and rules over practically every one—good ranch¬ 
ers and bad. Grandfather knew that it was his 
duty to oust this man and his band, but he has 
never been able to catch him. Grandfather him¬ 
self has been driven out of his own ranch, which 
happens to be in the center of the gang’s domain. 
That is his tragedy, this dear old man whom 
everybody once looked on as the deliverer.” 

“And this was your ranch, too—your home?” 
Drury asked, harping back to his own line of 
thought. 

“Yes, it is my ranch and my home,” the girl 
admitted. “And what makes it so unbearable for 
me is this: grandfather would have stayed there 
on his ranch and fought the gang. Every one 





THE QUEST 


33 


knows he would prefer death to such a retreat as 
he has made; he has come here to live in the safety 
of a city hotel, and for what reason do you think? 
For my sake—that is the reason. He has me to 
think of now. And just to keep me absolutely 
safe, he prefers giving up this old fighting name.” 

“I wouldn’t call it such a tremendous disgrace, 
then,” Drury commented. 

“No; but you do not know my grandfather. 
Every day he frets and worries and plans how he 
can rid the range of this bandit and his gang. He 
has gotten up posses time and again, and men have 
been killed. A year ago he succeeded in getting 
the sheriff to go on the hunt. The sheriff was 
killed. Then a Federal marshal was killed. The 
present sheriff, who is a coward, is—according to 
grandfather’s opinion—secretly in league with the 
outlaws. The years have gone by, and still the 
bandits have thrived. Some have been caught, 
sentenced to life imprisonment; others hanged. 
The head of the gang, whom no one has ever seen, 
has never been found. And it is to get that man 
that you are being sent into the desert. Grand¬ 
father knows that he is too old to fight now. 
Younger men are needed. But whoever it is who 





34 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


gets this outlaw leader makes no difference. The 
one ambition of Peter Gaunt is that the man and 
his gang be wiped out. Until that happens my 
grandfather will think that he is going down these 
declining years of his life disgraced and unworthy 
of the great trust the people have put in him.” 

Tomy Drury’s answer was full of enthusiasm. 

“It’s a great job you’re giving me!” he cried. 
“To help out an honorable old man and restore 
a home to his little girl. I’ll make a big boast to 
you here and now, and it’s an honest-to-God boast, 
too: I’m going into the desert on the war horse 
you’ve given me, and until I’ve wiped out the 
murderers infesting it, I’ll not come back. I’ll 
never head eastward again, I promise you that, 
until I can come and say to you, ‘Your old rancho 
is ready and safe for you, and the chief, your 
grand-dad, can live in honor and peace.’ ” 

The little buckboard rattled up in front of the 
Eldorado Hotel just as Peter Gaunt himself, 
mounted on a roan saddle horse, caught up with 
them. 

Drury bade good-by to the girl, shaking the 
hand she offered him with a reassuring grip. 




THE QUEST 


35 


“Don’t tell grandfather what I have said,” she 
whispered. 

Old Peter Gaunt invited the cowpuncher into 
the buffet of the hotel, where, he remarked, they 
could get acquainted and look each other over 
with the aid of red-eye. 

The little scene in which Tom found himself was 
a curious combination of figures observed in a 
modem, overgrown, Western city and a remnant 
of frontier days. The group that gathered around 
the two men revealed the well-dressed lawyer or 
banker rubbing elbows with some raw-boned, stove- 
up live-stock manager, or some Choctaw roaring 
with his oil-field riches, and still wearing an otter- 
skin belt and grizzly-claw necklace with his brand- 
new store suit. 

But the most picturesque man there was Peter 
Gaunt, his eyes as clear and sharp as a hawk’s, 
and his wind-burned face a violent contrast to the 
silver-white hair. The bartender, a small, pallid 
man with a black mustache, shined the mahogany 
before him fawningly, and got out Gaunt’s cus¬ 
tomary drink with a conscious pride that he was 
serving one of the old frontier characters. The 
drink Gaunt offered Tom Drury was not gin or 




36 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


red-eye or jackass brandy, to which the cowboy 
was obviously by nature better adapted, but a split 
of champagne. 

“Now, my boy,” Gaunt began, “just why are 
you in this part of the country?” 

“I left the Texas ranch where I was working 
because the place got too all-fired tangled up with 
cattle-proof fences.” 

“Pardon me if I remark casual-like that your 
words suggest certain thoughts which I ain’t got 
the nerve to put into words.” 

“You think I’m a rustler,” Drury laughed. 
“That’s not why I object to cattle-proof fences. My 
main objection is in the fact that without stock- 
proof wire your chances of mixing in with fights 
are reduced to nothing. I asked my foreman why 
he didn’t send me out on any more fights, and he 
said that the times were changing too rapidly. 
The place was getting plumb disgustingly civil¬ 
ized. He said it was time for us to go into New 
Mexico or Arizona, where the fences hadn’t spoiled 
the ranges yet. So we went. He got a job in 
Dona Anna County, where they said he’d find some 
good gunshooting. He advised me to go still 
farther west and hire out with some rancher who 




THE QUEST 


37 


was in need of a sharpshooter. So I’ve come here 
to offer myself as the personal stock-proof fence 
for any cattle-king who wants me.” 

“Well, I want you,” Peter Gaunt answered. 
“And I’m thinking at last I’ve got the right man 
for the job.” 

The crowd of ranchers and Indians stopped 
their drinking as if the old rancher was about to 
deliver a speech, which in the main was his 
intention. 

Old Gaunt’s approach to the subject at hand 
interested Drury in a very particular way. The 
girl, Drury recalled, had considered the quest as 
a move which was all-important only because it 
would lead to the ultimate happiness of her 
grandfather. Gaunt, on the other hand, looked at 
the matter as something of vital interest to his little 
girl. “It’s for Jennie Lee’s sake you are to do 
this,” he confided. “Until you know how that 
gal cherished the old rancho where her childhood 
was spent, you cannot know how all-fired anxious 
I am for you to succeed in doing this here deed 
I’m going to ax of you.” 

“I have a pretty good idea,” Drury put in. 

“Oh, no you haven’t. Don’t start out thinking 




38 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


$ou know something you don’t. You ain’t a gal 
in the first place, and you probably don’t under¬ 
stand how a gal gets to love every cranny in the 
-old walls, every vine, every little note of the foun¬ 
tain which used to play in the patio —and all that 
stuff! You know what I mean—all that stuff that 
a gal thinks is so damned important.” 

“I know what a rancho is like,” Tom admitted. 

“Well, the long and short of it, Mr. Puncher-boy, 
is this: that little gal is just pining away with home¬ 
sickness. That’s what. And here I am—plenty 
of money—enough to buy her a dozen other 
ranchos; but what good are they, I’ll ax you? 
What good is this whole damned hotel if I bought 
at for you? They ain’t the same walls, are they, 
now? They ain’t the same odors of pepperwood 
and sage like what we used to smell back thar. 
Course they’s other odors to this here hotel—but 
nothin’ that—well, you know what I mean.” 

“There’s nothing like the purple sage to get 
your memories going back,” Tom admitted. The 
rest of the men in the saloon chimed in, swearing 
to the truth of his remark. 

“Now, they’s a bandit out in that thar country 
where my rancho is,” Gaunt explained. “And he 




THE QUEST 


39 


has as his henchmen three of the lousiest mur¬ 
derers that ever carried a runnin’ iron or a 
notched gun. Now you’ll say to me, you’ll say, 
‘What the hell can three crooks and a leader do 
ag’in’ the order of a civilized country?’ Now tell 
me, Mr. Puncher-boy—ain’t you thinkin’ that right 
now?” 

“I admit-” 

“Sure! You admit it. Well, I’ll tell you you’re 
crazy, Mr. Puncher, to ever refer to this here pari 
of the country as civilized. Why, this shag-gutted, 
white-livered sheriff who stays in this here towr 
wouldn’t any more lift a finger to harm a hair of 
them bandits’ ha ids. And why—I ask yer, why: 
Scairt. That’s why. Just as plumb scairt as a 
cholo woman is of a dehorned steer! And it’s the 
way with every one else-” 

“And damned lucky it is!” the bartender put in. 
“The last sheriff got potted by one of the gang. 
And then the marshal-” 

“You keep out of this, barkeep. I’ll tell him 
of the danger later on. As I was sayin’, Mr. 
Puncher-boy, this here outlaw king has got such 
a firm holt on the country that all the ranchers— 
peaceful and warlike, straight and crooked—are 







40 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


on his side. Not one dares to lift a hand for fear 
he’ll get a death sentence pronounced on him. 
And every attempt I’ve made the last five years 
for to get this outlaw and his gang, has failed. 
My men have been plugged, bumped off, whisked 
away. And every new failure strengthens the 
fear-sway this bird holds over the range. They’s 
only one way to bust that fear-sway and it’s for 
one man to sneak into that thar country and find 
this outlaw king—and-” 

“What does he look like?” Drury asked. 

The crowd burst out into an impolite laugh. 
“Now he’s axed you somethin’, chief!” the bar- 
keep cried. 

“You sure have axed me somethin’ thar, Mr. 
Puncher-boy!” Gaunt said with a tremendous, 
lugubrious sigh. “And the answer is this: I don’t 
know. Not a man in this here room knows. Not 
a man on the whole damned range knows. And 
if you’ll believe it I’ll tell you this: not even his 
own gang knows!” 

Drury laughed scornfully at this news, but 
found that his laugh was going flat on a dead 
silence. “It’s impossible!” 

“Yes, you’d say so. I believe it is, too. But 





41 


THE QUEST" 

the methods of this here outlaw are peculiar. In 
fact, they’re so ornery crawlin’ and sneakin’ that 
folks call him the Gila Monster. And he sort of 
helps his fear-sway along by stylin’ hisself the 
Gila. It’s generally understood that he gets his 
gang together by goin’ to their hidin’ places and 
whistlin’ a sort of hissing whistle. And they troop 
after him. They used to only be one. But he’s 
added to ’em one by one and we’ve shot ’em off 
one by one. Only he adds faster’n we shoot, so 
that now he’s got three henchmen. And so long 
as the Gila himself lives it don’t do us no good 
to shoot his gang. Two heads spring on the 
damned monster as fast as we cut one off—as the 
old story of Hercules goes in the Bible.” 

“It’s up to me then to find out just who this 
bird is, and get him before I go horsing around 
after his gang,” Drury said. “And it’s going to 
be easier than you’re making out. I don’t believe 
a man can lead a gang and keep his identity a 
secret from the gang itself.” 

“Well, you’ll believe it sooner or later,” Gaunt 
replied dryly. “Here’s one proof of it: most out¬ 
law leaders get discovered by some member of 
their own gang givin’ ’em away, either for spite, 






42 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


or maybe for fear and self-protection, or maybe 
on their deathbed. But this here Gila has never 
been give’ away. And all because he won’t let his 
gang see his face. He leads ’em masked. That’s 
how he helps along his rep as some terrible un¬ 
beatable monster.” 

“But his voice—his gait—the way he rides a 
horse—all of those things-” 

“Of course. Like as not his men could recog- 
nize him thataway. But in these here night raids 
it ain’t too easy! And his face he never reveals. 
Then there’s the mystery concernin’ what he does 
with himself during the day. That’s the strongest 
card he holds. It’s understood he leads a double 
life. Maybe he’s a respected rancher somewheres 
on the outskirts of his domain. Maybe he’s a 
prospector; you can’t tell.” 

“How’s this gentleman here going to get him 
without he knows what he looks like?” the barkeep 
asked trenchantly. 

“It’ll be best, since you’re a stranger in these 
parts, to go into the desert with a guide,” Gaunt 
advised. “You can take a look around the moun¬ 
tains and ranchos, and bein’ no one knows you, 
you’ll be able to pass off as a prospector.” Gaunt 







THE QUEST 


43 


turned to the audience. “Now, is there any of you 
birds that’ll offer to act as this man’s guide?” 

A general shuffling of feet was all he could get 
as an immediate answer to his question. Men 
edged behind each other, leaving their glasses half 
full on the bar. Others at the farther end of the 
crowd sidled into booths, some into the hotel, 
others out into the street. 

“You see, Mr. Puncher-boy, the job is so danger¬ 
ous that it ain’t even possible to have a man show 
you how to get into this Gila’s territory. They’re 
afraid if it’s knowed that they helped this here 
expedition of youm they’d get bumped off at 
night.” 

“Then I’ll have to inquire the way,” Drury 
said. “And hop to it alone.” 

“No, you won’t stranger,” a voice said behind 
his shoulder. Drury and Gaunt both turned to 
look at the newcomer. 

He was a man of about forty, dressed in the 
camper’s outfit of khaki and puttees. His open 
shirt revealed a bare tanned throat, and his sleeves 
were rolled up on brown, finely muscled arms. 
The man himself had a sharply chiseled face, with 




44 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


black eyes, black eyebrows and scarred cheek¬ 
bone. 

“This here is Mr. Henry Sugg,” Gaunt said. 
“A friend of mine and the slickest shot in the 
county. He’s rode with us many a time when 
the Vigilantes went out try in’ to thin out the 
bad men. In fact, this here gent was the one as 
potted the last of the Gila’s henchmen we got.” 

“Fm glad to meet you, stranger,” Henry Sugg 
said to the cowboy. “I think I can get you a 
guide for this trip of yours. But the job is so 
dangerous that it might take me all afternoon 
hunting one up. Suppose you meet me here in 
this buffet to-night after dark? Meanwhile, get 
your grubstake ready—and I’ll see that I have a 
man with a horse and his outfit ready for you.” 

Drury stared at the stranger. “Why are you 
so interested?” 

Henry Sugg raised his black eyebrows, and 
then smiled. “I am interested in a lady who is 
in distress—a lady who is pining away with 
homesickness!” 

Gaunt slapped his friend on the back. “Now 
that’s the good ole bull-thrower, Sugg! There ain’t 




THE QUEST 


45 


a more chivalrous bird in town than this here 
Henry Sugg, Mr. Puncher-boy!” 

“If your chivalry will get me a guide,” Drury 
rejoined, “I’ll be content to do the rest.” 

“That’s talking, cowboy,” Gaunt put in. “That’s 
talking.” 

“And tell your granddaughter, Mr. Gaunt,” 
Tom continued, “that if Crater can carry me far 
enough, and my six-gun can shoot straight enough, 
she sure will be seeing her old patio and its palm 
trees again.” 

The crowd, led by Mr. Henry Sugg, broke out 
in a cheer, and Gaunt ordered a split of cham¬ 
pagne for every man present. 

The white-haired frontiersman held up his 
glass, and when the room was again quiet, he 
announced: “Be it understood, gents, one and all, 
that if this here stranger brings back the Gila I’m 
going to give him a reward—anything he asks, as 
the old say in’ goes—up to half my kingdom.” 

Tom Drury held up his glass before the others 
drank. “And be it also understood, gents, that 
Tom Drury’s not specifying what he wants for a 
reward, but it’s not going to be a kingdom. It’s 
going to be something else—something I’t© set 





46 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


my heart on, and I’m not saying what it is until I 
bring back the Gila Monster roped and hog-tied 
ridin’ on a jack.” 

“Here’s hopin’ you’ll come back yourself,” 
Sugg remarked, holding up his glass. 

“And ridin’ somethin’, yourself, beside a 
hearse,” the barkeep added. 

It was thus that Tom Drury made his vow in the 
little buffet of the Eldorado Hotel and drank to it 
in company with twenty witnesses. 

“Well, I got to be hurryin’ off,” Gaunt said as 
the glasses were drained. “I promised I’d go 
ridin’ with the little gal and she’ll be givin’ me 
hell for leaving her settin’ in the street so long!” 

He edged his way through the crowd, and Drury, 
although uninvited, gravitated after him toward 
the direction of the buckboard. 

“This stranger has just made a remark—and 
before witnesses,” Peter Gaunt said to his grand¬ 
daughter. “You are going to see your old home 
again. He promises you.” 

The girl’s brown eyes widened with excitement, 
and Drury detected a new look in them. 

“But have you thought of the danger?” she said. 
“Every man will be against you—not only the 




THE QUEST 


47 


Gila’s gang, but the ranchers who are silently on 
his side. No one has succeeded yet. Besides that* 
you will be fighting in the dark and in a country 
where water holes are rare and some poisonous* 
and where mirages are on every horizon.” 

“Your granddad told me everything,” Tom re- 
plied. 

“And still you are going?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why are you risking your life for this?” 

“Well, if you must know, I’ll tell you. Your 
granddad said you’re pining away with homesick¬ 
ness. And down in the outfit I come from in Texas 
thar’s not a puncher-boy living that wouldn’t want 
to do something when a girl says she’s homesick. 
A puncher-boy just can’t bear to see a lady in 
distress.” 

The girl looked at him for a moment, and then 
her mouth trembled and smiled. Before either 
spoke she reached down into the bottom of the 
buggy where a holster, cartridge belt and revolver 
were lying. 

“This is the gun that was to have shot old 
Crater,” she said. “My father gave me this. I 
am going to lend it to you to get your man. They 




48 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


say Crater would have made the fastest horse in 
the county—if a man could only stay on him. It 
has been said of this that it is the best balanced 
six-gun in the State.” 

“My son-in-law won every championship in the 
army with it,” the old grandfather said proudly. 
“And there’s plenty of smashing power in that 
there piece. Young Lee, before the Hopis got him, 
did more than win championships with it.” 

Tom Drury took the piece in his hand. It was 
an army Colt, thirty-eight caliber on a forty-four 
frame. No gun could have been manufactured to 
more perfectly fit the needs of Tom Drury. He 
knew how to fan a trigger—had practiced it for 
hours every day since his hand was big enough 
to hold a piece. The forty-four caliber Tom knew 
was disconcerting particularly to a gunman like 
himself who had perfected his shots with the much 
lighter kick of a thirty-eight. With a forty-four 
frame the kick, particularly to a hand of Tom’s 
strength, was practically eradicated. 

“I’m thanking you,” he said to the girl. “This 
looks as if it could get results.” 

“With the best gun and the best horse,” the girl 
replied, “I feel confident.” 

“That’s all I need,” Drury replied. 




CHAPTER IV 

THE GUIDE 

Drury’s preparations for his trip took a good part 
of the remainder of that day. He outfitted himself 
with two weeks’ supplies, estimating that for the 
first week he would need enough for two men: 
flour, bacon, boned ham, tea, sugar, cereal, raisins, 
beans, and dried vegetables. 

Shortly after sundown he called at the Eldo¬ 
rado buffet, where the pale-faced barkeep with the 
black mustache was engaged in his endless work 
of drying whisky glasses with a damp towel. When 
he saw Drury enter he immediately put down his 
things and stepped out from the bar. 

“Everything’s jake,” he said, looking around 
surreptitiously. He called to a man snoozing 
at one end of the sud-covered tables. “Now, then. 
Soggy, get out’n here while I sprinkle sawdust.” 
Soggy shambled to the door and disappeared. The 

barkeep then closed the door which led into the 

49 


50 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


hotel foyer and bolted the swinging doors which 
opened on the sidewalk. 

“What’s all the mystery for?” Drury asked. 

“Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Bronc-buster, the guide 
who has consented for to lead you into the Gila’s 
country ain’t overanxious to be seen by the towns¬ 
folk. You see, it’s too dangerous a business. 
Might it would spread around through the town 
that this here bird was acting as your assistant 
and then, like as not, some member of the Gila’s 
gang would get wind of it from a sheepherder or 
mucker. Then what? WeW, Mr. Guide would 
find himself bumped off, lyin’ out in a clump of 
cactus waitin’ for some one to find his bones.” 

The barkeep, when he was assured that there 
was no chance of his actions being spied on from 
either the doors or the windows, pointed over his 
shoulder with his thumb: 

“The last booth down to the comer of the bar.” 

Drury walked to the place indicated, drew aside 
the red plush curtains, and found himself in a 
little compartment with a large, broad-shouldered, 
heavily tanned, smiling man. 

“You are my guide?” he asked, staring with a 




THE GUIDE 


51 


certain amount of astonishment at the sharply chis¬ 
eled face and jet-black eyes of Henry Sugg. 

“Yes. Of course I could not announce it this 
afternoon when I met you,” Sugg replied. “You 
see, there were too many people in the room. And 
if it became known that I was to help the man 
who is gunning for the Gila-” 

“Yes, I understand that part of it.” 

“Mr. Sugg’s a quick draw and a hard rider,” 
the barkeep said as he drew the plush curtains to 
shut the two men in together. “I reckon he’ll go 
as far as you dare go yourself. Further and more, 
he knows where the water holes are, likewise the 
mirages.” 

The sharp steel-like glitter of Sugg’s eyes did 
not seem to belie the barkeep’s eulogy. Drury 
himself could not take his gaze from those eyes. 
They were far more important in his appraisal of 
the man than his winning smile. 

“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Sugg,” Drury said. 
“But if you profess to be a guide, how do you in¬ 
tend to lead me to the Gila when you don’t know 
what he looks like?” 

The man’s smile tightened, almost winsomely* 
and the barkeep burst into a hearty guffaw. 





RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


52 

“I reckon you got me there, stranger.” The 
guide laughed good-naturedly. “Damned if I 
know how to prove I’m competent!” 

“Didn’t old Gaunt tell you this aft that Mr. Sugg 
is one of the Vigilantes?” the barkeep asked from 
the other side of the curtain. 

“I’ll take a chance on you, Mr. Sugg,” Drury 
said. “If you’ve actually shot one of the outlaws 
yourself, then I think you’ll bring matters to a 
conclusion all the quicker. I’m anxious to get 
the game played and over with, so’s I can get back 
to town. My interests are all in town now, so to 
speak. You look like a sharp one, so let’s saddle 
’em up and go.” 

The guide rolled a cigarette with a deliberate¬ 
ness that arrested Tom’s attention. “First I want 
to say something,” he remarked coolly. “I’m ad¬ 
visin’ you not to go on this here trip.” 

“I’m hirin’ you to show me how to get there, 
not how to stay home,” Drury replied. 

“No man can get this Gila any more than you 

can get a swig of water from a mirage. The Hopis 

say he’s a witch doctor. They say he can turn 

into a mole or a buzzard or a coyote at will like all 

their ancient medicine men. Thev fear him like 

* 




THE GUIDE 


53 


they do the thunder—and it’s the same with the 
white men-” 

“There’s nothing dangerous about thunder,” 
Drury said. “I’m beginning to think that this 
outlaw only has his power in a fear-sway which 
he wields over the ignorant Indians and lonely 
cowboys. I’m going to break that spell before 
another month’s gone by.” 

“That’s all easy enough to say if it was known 
just who this Gila is. But when you’re talking 
about some unknown, supernatural thing-” 

“Supernatural hell! He’s probably a crook— 
some master-mind crook from the East who does 
things in a new way and knows how to start a lot 
of legends about himself and a lot of claptrap 
among the Hopis and Foxes. I’ll bust into it if 
he’s got a carcass big enough to hit with a thirty- 
eight.” 

The guide smiled knowingly. “Maybe a thirty- 
eight can’t hurt him. That’s one of the legends 
about him.” 

“Then this fist,” Drury continued. “Or the 
hoofs of my horse Crater. All I’m asking you to 
do is to take me to the Gila Range. Then if you’re 






54 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


so all-fired scared of this witch man you can come 
back.” 

“All right—if that’s the agreement, I’ll go. But 
I’ll wager you this: that once I take you into 
the desert you’ll change your mind. It’s not an 
ordinary desert. It’s a big, sizzling yellow plain 
in which every pool where you want to water your¬ 
self or your horse turns out to be either quicksand 
or a mirage. Men have gone crazy out there hunt¬ 
ing for gold. Gold is something you can feel and 
touch, something easier to find than the Gila.” 

“The reward I’m going to ask when I get back 
is worth all that,” Drury said. “If you’re willing 
to act as my guide, knowing that I’m well aware 
of the dangers of what I’m about to perform, I’m 
engaging you here and now, and we can take the 
trail before sundown.” 

i 

“There’s an old, deserted ghost town on the 
edge of the Gila’s dominion known fifty years 
ago as Desolation. I’ll take you within sight of 
that town, and from then on it’s up to you to shift 
for yourself. Will that suit you?” 

“It seems fair enough to me. I didn’t figure on 
hiring a guide who was going to help me actually 
rope the critter himself.” 




THE GUIDE 


55 


“Very well, then,” Sugg concluded. “I’m to be 
your guide, but I don’t want to be seen in this 
saloon with you—or in this booth. I will stay 
here for a while. You will go into the street, and 
if any one asks you who your guide is say you’ve 
decided to go without one. Tell them since you’re 
a stranger you feel it will be safer than having 
some man that every one knows tagging along 
after.” 

“That’s agreeable to me.” 

“And to-night we will start under cover of dark¬ 
ness and leave the city by different roads, you 
taking the old Lazy-J trail. We will meet at 
Donkey Bluffs three miles west. There is a little 
jacali there and a pool where we can water our 
horses before the desert ride. You will find it on 
the crest of the bluffs, and I will have a fire burn¬ 
ing there outside, so you won’t miss it. At mid¬ 
night we can start down into the desert.” 





CHAPTER V 


THE DESERT’S HORIZON 

That night when Drury set out on his quest he 
again mounted the back of the outlaw Crater. This 
time the big gelding knew his master. He pranced 
and snorted when he felt the scratching rowels, 
but after a few uncertain buckjumps he set out 
obediently on his course. The ride to Donkey 
Bluffs was covered without a protest, and from 
then on the man-killer knew that Drury’s hand on 
the reins was law. 

When they arrived at the little adobe hut on the 
crest of Donkey Bluffs Sugg was there, as planned. 
At the first sight of his guide Drury was again 
impressed with his extraordinary appearance. The 
picture of Henry Sugg on his blood bay was little 
short of magnificent. The silver studding of his 
saddle, the metal cuffs of his chaps, the glittering 
spurs—and above all, the man’s superb seat, as 
if he were a part of the horse—struck a curious 

bewilderment in Drury’s mind. 

56 


THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


57 


“Those are pretty good clothes you’ve got on 
that horse,” he remarked dryly. “It’s not the way 
guides generally dress.” 

“All the better for me,” Sugg laughed. “The 
last United States marshal who went gunning for 
the Gila rigged up as a Mexican bandit. That’s 
old stuff. Sheriff Homer tried the same. Both 
were shot. The Gila knows all the Mexes on this 
range—knows ’em personally, because they’re all 
on his side. No wonder he took a dislike to Homer 
and the marshal.” 

After watering their horses the two men rode 
down the zigzag trail which led from the crest of 
Donkey Bluffs to the sage-plain below. All that 
night they rode across the breast of the plain while 
the horizon flattened to a circle about them, and 
above a swarm of stars wheeled westward, blazing 
in the thin air. 

Before dawn the guide’s bay was pounding heav¬ 
ily on the trail, stumbling at every excuse, but the 
rider pressed him on. Drury’s huge mount showed 
no trace of the long night’s ride, saving a flecking 
of sweat which powdered to salt as the sun rose. 
When the first rays peeped over the eastern rim 
of the plain they fell across to the opposite horizon, 





58 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


which was broken by a looming fortresslike mesa. 

“That mesa is the limit of our ride to-day. Be¬ 
yond it is the Gila Range, and I don’t figure either 
of us wants to do too much traveling on that range 
by daylight.” 

Accordingly the guide suggested that they camp 
until noon, giving the horses their much-needed 
rest after the long ride. Dismounting, Sugg im¬ 
mediately set about to build a fire of sage sticks 
and started a smoke smelling strongly of tur¬ 
pentine. Drury meanwhile unsaddled the horses, 
leaving the blankets so that their steaming backs 
would not cool too quickly. A little breakfast of 
bacon followed, and cups of coffee, which used 
up their canteens of water. Then came a short 
rest, during which Drury, fatigued from his ride 
and the excitement of the previous day, dropped 
off to a troubled snooze. 

At noon another bite to eat, a restful drag on 
a cigarette; nosebags on horses; then, saddling and 
bridling, they again took the trail. 

After an hour’s canter on the plain the mesa 
towered in the sky above them. Drury could see 
its buttresses of sandy shales and rain-painted 
chalks. At first it was like a tower in a lake. 






THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


59 


because of the mirages at its base, but as the 
horsemen advanced—a matter of an hour’s steady 
loping—the waters receded, and the mounts slowed 
to a sudden ascent of the trail which led through 
the bowlders of the first rise. 

The alkali dust which had enveloped them 
during almost their entire ride had provoked a 
terrific thirst in both the riders and their horses. 

“If this water hole you’re leading me to hap¬ 
pens to be a mirage-” Drury began. 

“It will be no great matter.” 

“What the hell do you mean by that?” 

“It is not very far from civilization.” 

“Not yet, no. But we are getting farther and 
farther away.” 

“I reminded you when we first agreed to go on 
this ride together that you would probably change 
your purpose when out on the desert.” 

“I have not changed my purpose.” 

“We have seen no quicksand yet.” 

“I will not change my purpose then, either.” 

“Wait and see.” 

The big shock came when they saw the pool. 

According to Sugg’s rudely sketched map, the 
pool could be found between a giant bowlder and 





60 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


a clump of barrel cactus. As the mirages lifted 
before them they got their bearings. A scrambling 
climb along the trail, during which they dis¬ 
mounted, leading their horses, brought them half¬ 
way up the cliffs. A lone bowlder deposited on the 
edge of the adobe banks was easily found. 

To the north across a sharp, deep arroyo they 
saw the cactus, and beyond a long stretch of “sky- 
blue water.” The real water they were looking 
for would be at the bottom of the arroyo. Ac¬ 
cordingly they climbed down the rocky defile, and 
Drury learned the truth. 

In the bowl-shaped hollow he could see nothing 
but the bed of what had once been a pool. The 
walls were brilliantly colored with banded rocks 
of pink and lurid red. Up to a certain level where 
the last evaporation had begun every bowlder and 
stick and stone was incrusted with salt crystals 
which reflected blindingly the rays of the sun. 

Drury looked into Sugg’s face. It was not a 
look of despair or exasperation; it was merely a 
cool, questioning stare. 

“I didn’t figure on the drought finishing the 
pool up so fast,” Sugg explained. “The last time 
I was here-” 





THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


61 


“Mr. Sugg, listen to me,” Drury interrupted. 
“Explanations aren’t going to slake the thirst of 
our mounts—or of our own tongues. All I hired 
you to do was to bring me within sight of Desola¬ 
tion. From then on it’s up to me to get my own 
food and drink. If you’re worrying now about our 
famishing, the best you can do is to show me 
Desolation and take me by the shortest, straightest 
route, before either of us keels over with sunstroke. 
You do that, and I won’t blame you for this dried 
pool.” 

“Now, look here, Mr. Drury,” Sugg said in his 
usual softly modulated voice, “I warned you about 
this part of the country. I told you in particular 
to think about the desert and the sun and the 
mirages before you took the step. You said, ‘Oh, 
that’ll be all right, Mr. Sugg—that’ll be all right!’ 

“And then I warned you about this two-gun gent 
that men have never been able to identify, and you 
said the same thing. ‘That’ll be all right, Mr. 
Sugg,’ you said. Well, before I see you climbing 
down the trail on the other side of this mesa to 
your destruction I’m going to give you cme more 
last point to think about-” 





62 


JUDE HIM, COWBOY 


“I’m going without considering any more of 
your friendly remarks,” Drury interrupted. 

“Yes, I know, I know, Mr. Drury. It’s plain to 
be seen by the look in your eye that you’re going 
to stick to the hunt. But I reckon I can give you a 
good big surprise first, and this is it: your reason 
for going, as you made public in the Eldorado 
buffet, was that you were a chivalrous puncher-boy 
from Texas with the intentions of helping a woman 
in distress. That woman in distress is the grand¬ 
daughter of old Peter Gaunt. You are doing this 
business for her so’s she will be restored to her 
home-” 

“I reckon I’ll admit that,” Drury said. 

“And your reward-” 

“I kept my mouth shut about the reward I was 
going to ask,” Drury said quickly. 

“Yes, but any one could figure it-” 

“But not say it.” 

“The sun’s beatm’ down on our heads, Mr. 
Drury. Our brains are beginning to sizzle up— 
but what I’m going to say I’m going to say. It’s 
the only one thing in the world that maybe will 
bring you to your senses and keep you from going 
down there to your death.” 







THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


63 


“I’ll say again I’m going.” 

“You’re going for the sake of a girl. The Gila 
has sworn that girl is for him.” 

“A lie!” 

“Gaunt did not tell you that, then?” 

“Hell, no!” 

“He did not tell you that the real reason he is 
afraid to go back to the ranch with his daughter 
is that the Gila wants her!” 

“Then my job is the same—only I have more 
cause now! When I draw on the Gila I’ll aim 
straighter, knowing that I’m killing a lousy cut¬ 
throat who thinks he can so much as mention that 
girl’s name and get away with it.” 

“Let me remind you that if the Gila finds that 
you yourself are in love with the girl he will work 
a terrible revenge on you.” 

“Who is this horror that you want to make me 
quake about?” Drury laughed. 

“A man who can tote two guns and fire ’em both 
so’s it sounds as if one shot killed two men.” 

“I reckon I’ve got four shots in this chamber 
of mine that will kill four men—the three bandits 
and their leader, the old Mr. Gila Monster.” 





64 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Sugg burst into a raucous laugh. “That is a 
good joke, isn’t it, now?” 

“A joke?” 

“Your making that boast now, when we are both 
liable to keel over with sunstroke.” 

“I made a vow that I would get the Gila Mon¬ 
ster,” Drury replied. “And do you think I could 
go back to that town now and say I gave up because 
one of the water holes in the desert is dry?” 

They rode on. Both men took a drink, and the 
guide, seeing that Drury had drained his flask, 
offered him a swig. 

“There’s another pool eight miles farther,” he 
explained. “This will brace you till you get there.” 

The patter of hoofs was the only undertone to a 
long silence. Finally Sugg, assured that the whisky 
had helped the disposition of both, resumed the 
conversation. 

“What just happened back there at that dried 
pool has made me change my mind,” he began. 

“About what?” 

“I’m thinking that you have guts enough to stick 
to this chase till you meet your man.” 

“And get him.” 

“Perhaps. But when I first offered to go out 




66 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“The Gila, I’ve heard tell, carries a forty-five 
which they say had once been a self-cocker. The 
Gila took out the dog and converted it into a single¬ 
action gun. There is no double kick to it—and a 
double kick has balled up the shot of many a gun¬ 
man in days past.” 

“There’s no kick at all to mine,” Tom boasted. 

“The hell you say!” 

“I didn’t mention the fact that this gun of mine 
is a thirty-eight caliber on a forty-four frame!” 

The guide stared, riveting his eyes on the piece 
which Tom drew from his holster. As they jogged 
along Tom snapped up his hand, fired, and blew off 
the little waxlike white flower on the highest prong 
of a sojuaro cactus. 

“That’s a pretty good shot for twenty yards!” 
the guide cried enthusiastically. He drew his gun 
out as they jogged past, and at a distance of ten 
yards aimed at another of the little white flowers. 

Drury laughed at the miss. “That one little 
kick is what spoils your shot.” 

“Perhaps. If I could do it with your piece it 
would prove you are right. It would also prove 
that you can match yourself up against the Gila 




THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


65 


on this man-hunt I figured you’d give out when 
you found the first dried water hole. That’s where 
most posses give out. But if you stick to the chase 
in the face of sunstroke I’ll say that you’re showing 
something I didn’t bargain for. I’m with you in 
this fight until the finish.” 

Drury glanced up, surprised. 

“Then you aren’t just a guide!” he exclaimed. 
A new enthusiasm, as well as the swigs of whisky 
he had taken, warmed his voice. 

“From now on count on me until the end. I 
consider it lucky that I met you. It’s been many 
y.ears that I myself wanted to go out and get 
this Gila. But if you want me to speak the candid, 
shameless truth—I didn’t have the nerve. I’ve 
been sort of waiting until a man like you would 
come along. I was waiting in the saloon when 
old Gaunt brought you in and put the game up to 
you. I sized you up. I said to myself, ‘He’s got 
the strength and the eye—and the hand for a six- 
gun; but has he got the nerve?’ Well, I’ve found 
out you have. The only thing now, I said to my¬ 
self, is a question of how he’s heeled.” 

“Fm carrying a piece that was forged to my 
specific order by the devil himself—a thirty-eight.” 




THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


67 


with his single-action weapon. Let me see your 
gun.” 

Drury handed it over to his guide, and the latter 
picked out another target—a gopher scurrying for 
his hole under a rock. One shot cracked out, and 
the little brown body leaped forward, kicked, and 
convulsed. 

“About thirty yards!” Sugg cried gleefully. 
“A magnificent gun, this.” They jogged on, and 
Sugg cocked the weapon, spun the cylinder, then 
held his thumb to the barrel, reflecting the rays 
of the sun into the bore. “Clean as a whistle, 
too.” 

Tom Drury did not hear these last remarks. An 
electric shock had passed through him which made 
him pale like a man who had fallen in a faint. In 
the brief seconds which Sugg took to examine that 
gun a hundred fears were flocking into Tom’s 
mind. 

He evoked his first vision of Sugg in the buffet 
of the Eldorado Hotel—smiling, suave, polite. 
Sugg had offered to get a guide for the desert trip; 
he had met Tom in the saloon, blanketing the meet¬ 
ing in a complete and mysterious secrecy; he had 
later met him under cover of night at a safe dis- 




68 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


tance from the town! Not a soul knew that these 
two men were out in the desert together. Then, 
Tom recalled in the next flash, Henry Sugg had 
brought him farther and farther into the desert. 
They were now where no man would ever find 
them, and in a moment of braggadocio and utter 
thoughtlessness Tom had actually given this man 
his gun. 

“Are you through with it?” he asked almost 
voicelessly. 

Sugg laughed, reined his horse closer to the 
big gelding, and held the gun out to Tom at arm’s 
length, saying: 

“Take it! It’s a beauty, but I’m damned if the 
Gila will ever give you a chance to get within range 
if he knows you’re heeled with it!” 

Tom reached for the gun, and as he did so he 
saw that the butt was not being held toward him. 
If he grasped it his fingers would close on the muz¬ 
zle. And he noticed that there was a curious 
rigidity of the muzzle as it pointed directly at his 
heart. 

Although the horses were jogging on, that little 
gun barrel seemed immovable—like a bee which 
hangs a certain distance over a moving object. On 





THE DESERT’S HORIZON 


69 


the instant Drury looked up into Sugg’s eyes—and 
he understood everything. 

Those black, shining orbs revealed the whole 
truth of the situation in a single flash. 

Drury knew then that Sugg was not a guide. And 
he knew that Sugg was not a man who was afraid 
to go down over the bluffs and across the desert or 
up to the mesa beyond into the Gila’s domain. 
Sugg was not afraid of the murderers, the brand- 
blotchers, the renegades of the Gila Range. Sugg 
himself was the master mind of the whole gang, 
the man who hid under the mirage of a double 
life and directed his crimes from behind the das¬ 
tardly respectability of a “leading citizen.” 

The man whom Drury had come to the desert 
to kill had acted as his guide, and Tom Drury 
knew in that fraction of a second, that he was look¬ 
ing into the grinning mouth, the flashing teeth, the 
calm tight lips of the Gila Monster himself. 




CHAPTER VI 


HENRY SUGG’S FAREWELL 

A sudden surge of anger came over Drury as he 
realized how absurdly he had been tricked. “Sugg, 
are you handing me that gun?” he cried out almost 
desperately. 

“I reckon you know, Mr. Drury,” Sugg rejoined 
calmly. 

“What the hell do you reckon I know?” 

Both men slowed their horses to a walk. Sugg’s 
bay, feeling his master’s knees, came to a stop. 

“I reckon you know I won’t give you this six- 
gun, so dismount and stand over there, Mr. Drury, 
and don’t let your hands get too near your belt 
or your shirt.” 

Drury obeyed. His captor then dismounted in 
turn and went over to him, searched him, and 
satisfying himself that he had Drury’s only weapon, 
stepped back and with his disengaged hand lit a 
cigarette. 


70 


HENRY SUGG’S FAREWELL 


71 


“Well, the first part of the fight is over,” he 
remarked. 

“I’m glad it is only the first, because I sure 
want some more,” Drury shot back. 

“Fine. Some other time. And I hope under 
conditions which will be more to your liking.” 

Drury tried to stammer in answer, but could 
only stare into the twinkling eyes and finely chis¬ 
eled, deeply tanned face. 

“Look here, damn you, why are you keeping 
me like this? I reckoned this would be a finish 
fight. You are playing with me like a lousy, 
mewing cat.” 

“It will be a finish fight,” Sugg answered 
suavely. 

“Then what are you holding that muzzle to my 
nose that way for? Are you bluffing?” 

“I am not going to throw it on you, Mr. Drury, 
because you are too good a man to kill.” 

Drury replied with a volley of oaths. 

“You are afraid to kill me. I don’t want bou¬ 
quets; I want fighting.” 

“You will get it. I am going to keep you for 
fighting. As I said, you are too good a man to 
bump off. When I kill, Mr. Tom Drury, I want 




72 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


an audience. I want men to say, ‘This is the man 
who killed Tom Drury—Tom Drury, who was the 
greatest bronc peeler that ever gentled a horse.’ 
If I killed you now and left you here no one would 
find you for weeks—months—except, of course, 
the coyotes, and they would take their time about 
appreciating you; they generally wait from four 
days to a week-” 

“What the hell are you going to do, Mr. Gila 
Monster?” 

Sugg stepped back, paling. 

It was the first time Drury had actually accused 
him. Until now there had been a chance that 
Drury only suspected him of being in the Gila’s 
gang. This was the first knowledge Sugg had that 
his man actually realized he was dealing with the 
Gila himself. 

“Look here, Mr. Man, you must not accuse me 
like that. Let it be definitely understood that I am 
not the Gila.” 

“You lie. You are.” 

“No, I don’t lie. It must not be said anywhere 
that I am the Gila. The identity of the Gila must 
at all hazards be kept a secret.” 






HENRY SUGG’S FAREWELL 


73 


“It is not a secret. I know you yourself are the 
Gila.” 

“I am asking you to take that remark back, 
Mr. Drury.” 

“No, I will not take it back. You yourself are 
the Gila. When you say you aren’t you are 
lying.” 

“Very well, then, you will regret what you’ve 
said,” Sugg concluded calmly. “I am going to 
punish you in a very just and definite way.” His 
mouth broke into a beautiful smile. He seemed 
pleased with the extraordinary patness of his 
judgment. “Your punishment will be this: I 
understand that you have just come to the city. 
No one knows who you are, except that you are 
supposed to be a Texas cowman. Wouldn’t it be 
just, since you have accused me of being the Gila, 
that I merely turn around and accuse you of being 
the same thing? That’s an eye for an eye, if ever 
there was such justice in the history of this range.” 

“You are going to accuse me!” Drury’s face 
bore an incredulous grin. “A hell of a chance!” 

“We shall see.” 

Drury was disarmed. The gun he had carried, 
and on which were carved the initials of Jennie 




74 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Lee’s father, together with the cartridge belt and 
holster of carved and studded leather, was claimed 
by Sugg as the first and most important part of the 
victor’s spoils. The next was the sombrero, with 
its band of beaded Hopi legends. 

The outlaw, keeping up his constant flow of ban¬ 
ter, condescended to leave his victim a surprisingly 
vital part of his outfit—his food. 

“And in case you get thirsty in your long walk,” 
he added, “you can finish up this red-eye of mine.” 
He gulped down a swig and tossed the flask upon 
the duffel bag which he had untied from the cantle 
of Crater’s saddle. There must have been a reason 
for the outlaw’s leaving this food and drink, for 
there was enough to last his victim a good long 
journey home. Drury did not think of this at 
the time. His ear caught a much more important 
word in Sugg’s last remark. 

“You say ‘walk’?” he cried voicelessly. 

“You must remember that if I left you your 
gelding you would be able to outdistance me—and 
in any direction you chose.” 

The full significance of his plight struck home 
to Drury as he watched the rider lope off, puffing 
thin wisps of smoke from his cigarette. Crater. 





HENRY SUGG’S FAREWELL 


75 


who had been snubbed to the pommel, loped after, 
preferring the company of the blood bay to re¬ 
maining behind with the man who had mastered 
him. 

“At least,” Drury consoled himself, “if he rides 
Crater he will be killed.” 

But Sugg betrayed no intention of trying to ride 
him. He galloped leisurely across the plain to 
the north, until the light mist of alkali slowly 
turned his form into a gray silhouette and then 
erased him entirely from view. The little cloud 
moved away, purpling and fading over the crest 
of the mesa. 




CHAPTER VII 


THE THREE-HEADED HENCHMAN 

Riding his blood bay and still leading the big 
outlaw Crater, Henry Sugg covered the thirty miles 
of desert which lay between the mesa and the 
mountains. Well over the range, he came into the 
limitless and desolate plain which was his own 
domain. 

At sunset he arrived within sight of a shake hut 
and a little corral. In the latter a pinto and two 
burros were feeding from a hay rack. Sugg 
waited. As the darkness deepened he took out 
an old mask of black velvet, which he slipped over 
his eyes. He tied his felt hat by its leather chin 
strap to the saddlehom, and then put on the 
sombrero which he had filched from Tom Drury, 
pulling it well down over his ears. It was the big 
yellow hat with the band of beaded legendary, the 
most conspicuous part of Drury’s outfit when he 
performed his broncho-twirling exhibition in Cat- 
tleoe the previous day. 

\ 


7G 


THE THREE-HEADED HENCHMAN 77 


Having effected these two changes in his cos- 
tunle, Sugg rode leisurely toward the shack, reined 
in his horse when about fifty feet from the door, 
and by the use of two fingers breathed out a low, 
husky, hissing call. 

The pinto seemed to know this whistle. He 
threw up his head, stopped his munching, and 
cantered down to the end of the corral. Crater and 
the blood bay neighed a welcome which the pinto 
answered. A moment later a man came out of the 
hut. 

He was undersized and foxlike, with red, bristly 
hair and a sunken face which had been badly dis¬ 
figured by bums. His costume was composed of 
a ragged, lop-brimmed hat, a black shirt with 
shoulder holster slung over it, a pair of khaki over¬ 
alls, and big hobnailed boots. 

This hunched, sinister little figure peered fur¬ 
tively into the dark, and when he saw the looming 
form of the other man, mounted on a blood bay, he 
slunk immediately to the corral to saddle his horse. 
He threw a ragged blanket over the chafed, sore 
back of his mount, and with one movement of his 
arm swung the saddle from its peg. Then, vault- 




78 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


ing onto his seat, he rode down toward the masked 
figure. 

Sugg wheeled his horse and rode down the trail, 
keeping a distance of twenty yards or more be¬ 
tween himself and the ragged pinto and rider whom 
he had summoned. 

A half an hour’s lope brought the two over the 
shoulder of a mountain and into a long, deeply 
gorged canon where a tangle of beams and up¬ 
rights marked the opening of a forsaken mine. 
Sugg rode through the thicket of mesquite which 
had grown over the mine’s waste and, dismounting, 
crept to the collar of the shaft, where he repeated 
the same whistle by which he had summoned his 
first follower. 

Again a horse, tethered near the gallows of the 
shaft opening, was the first to respond, shying back 
as far as his rope would permit him and pricking 
up his ears excitedly. Presently a Mexican shoved 
up a board and scrambled through an opening 
just small enough to serve as an exit and entrance 
to his well-concealed “home.” 

Saddling and mounting his horse, he cantered 
down the steep incline of the waste, and when he 




THE THREE-HEADED HENCHMAN 


79 


had reached the trail below he found his master 
galloping off in the darkness. 

In single file the three men crossed the canon* 
skirted the hog-back mountain, and entered a gran¬ 
ite gorge which, despite the growing starlight, was 
as pitch dark as a cave. Here Sugg repeated his 
whistle. The sound, low as it was, hissed and 
echoed through the great rocky chasm as if it had 
been uttered within a marble hall. Immediately 
there was the echo of pawing hoofs, of champing, 
and then an answering whinny to the neighing of 
Crater and the bay. The jingle of spurs and the 
retch of leather came to Sugg from the darkness, 
as if there were men and horses scarcely a dozen 
yards away. In another moment a rider appeared. 
He was a tall scarecrow of a negro riding a little 
rangy mustang and wearing a torn sombrero, a 
shoulder holster, and bearskin chaps. 

Sugg beckoned to the little man who had been 

the first to join the gang. 

“Now, then, Slinkey, you’re going to lead this 
raid,” Sugg commanded. “All orders from now 
on will be given by you. The nigger and the Mex 
will obey you. I’ll ride along separately, and if 
there’s any sharpshooting necessary I’ll join in.” 




80 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Where are we headin’ for, chief?” Slinkey 
Drigges asked. 

“The Lingo outfit.” 

“We’ve already rustled the place clean. Hell, 
there ain’t nothin’ left of the outfit exceptin’ a 
rangy crop of calves half eaten up by maggots! 
What ole Lingo could scrape together for a beef 
herd he sold a day or two ago.” 

“That’s the reason for this raid. He hasn’t been 
able to put his wad in the Cattleoe Bank yet, be¬ 
cause of being too late Saturday. He’s got his little 
fifty-dollar bills in a safe, thinking he’ll bank ’em 
to-morrow, and it’s up to you to make him admit 
it.” 

“Marty Lingo won’t admit nothin’, chief. And 
I ain’t a good enough talker for to persuade a man 
he’s got a lot of bills hidden away in a house. I’m 
liable to get stammerin’ any minute.” 

“If you find yourself stammering, whistle,” 
Sugg replied, “and I’ll start the shooting.” 

“I reckon Marty Lingo will mind my whistlin’ 
more’n my talkin’,” Drigges admitted. 

“You ride up to the main ranch-house at eight. 
The nigger backs you up. Andres will set fire to 
one of the corrals—any one, it makes no difference; 




THE THREE-HEADED HENCHMAN 81 


just one large enough to help the atmosphere-” 

“The atmosphere?” Slinkey asked, puzzled. 

“Just so Marty Lingo will know he’s got to cut 
out arguing.” 

“I’ll see to it, chief. Eight o’clock, you say— 
and you’ll be on hand in case I get to stammerin’.” 

A long, easy canter brought the little band to 
the eastern edge of the plain. Here they trailed 
up into the hills of drought-resisting forage which 
marked the transition between the civilized country 
about Cattleoe and the Gila’s kingdom of crime. 

The desert starlight soon cast a blue glow over 
the rolling prairie country, and the gang came 
precipitously upon the site of Marty Lingo’s cattle 
ranch. Sugg circled the little group of barns, 
bunk-sheds, and corrals, and disappeared in the 
chaparral and hog-wallows of the opposite side. 
Slinkey Drigges, who was acting as his lieutenant, 
called the remaining two members together. The 
three men did not make a very agreeable picture 
as they sat on their horses, leaning on pommels, 
waiting for eight o’clock to approach. 

The trio was as dangerous as it was hideous. 
Audacity, sneak-thievery, and murder were repre¬ 
sented in this three-headed bodyguard of the Gila 





82 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Monster. The Gila, in fact, had picked his fellow 
bandits with a canny precision. Each one was a 
master in his own line, and the three together 
made a finely balanced posse of criminals equal to 
any task the master set for them. To meet the 
Gila and his band was like meeting an animal like 
the Chimera or Cerberus, which, failing to win the 
fight one way, could strike twice again. 

Probably Slinkey Drigges, an ex-convict, was 
the cunningest of the three. Although a condemned 
murderer, his trickery had won him his freedom. 
In a California penitentiary he had been locked in 
solitary confinement and clothed in a red shirt 
instead of stripes, to denote that he had previously 
attempted to break prison. It was at San Quentin, 
on the edge of San Francisco Bay, that prisoners 
were set to work in a jute mill. Drigges, while in 
his condemned cell, set fire to a piece of cloth and 
stuffed it through the floor so that it dropped into 
a storeroom littered with the matted hair and sack¬ 
ing of the mill. In the excitement of a fire Drigges 
gambled on making his escape. This was how he 
played his game habitually. He had the cunning, 
but not the cowardice, of a fox. 

Drigges’s little red head reached scarcely above 






THE THREE-HEADED HENCHMAN 83 


the waist of the giant negro, who was called Black 
Spudds. Spudds was the brawn of the gang. It 
was said that he had fought a grizzly in Idaho, and 
had gone into a Wild West circus under the title 
of the Bear Bulldogger. This was perhaps merely 
part of the legend that Henry Sugg liked to foster 
about his henchmen. That Black Spudds had 
killed a man in a prize fight, however, was well 
known. He steered clear of the States of Idaho, 
Nevada, and Utah, and was gradually heading 
south, leaving a long wake of brutal crimes. 

Andres, the Mexican, was the best shot of the 
gang, and the interpreter. Half Mexican, half 
Yuman, he was the most effective agent for keeping 
the greaser and Indian settlers in a constant fervor 
of hate against the Americans. It was by means 
of this big, ever present, ever growing conflict that 
Sugg, his master, could kill and rob with impunity, 
and Andres—leader among the Mexicans—was the 
intermediary. 

At the appointed hour this little gang—this 
three-headed beast—crawled through the mesquite 
and chaparral surrounding Marty Lingo’s ranch, 
and made its onslaught. It was an onslaught 
hacked by power—the power not only of the six- 





84 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


shooter and of cunning, but of something more 
invincible: the curious method of the Gila, who 
worked up a raid so that its victims would be left 
helpless with fear, as helpless as some little wood- 
mouse or horror-stricken rabbit which sees a boa 
constrictor advancing upon it. 




CHAPTER VIII 


LINGO BOWS TO THE FEAR-SWAY 

Slinkey Drigges, keeping the giant negro as his 
own personal bodyguard, sent the other bandit to 
the rear of the Lingo outfit to set fire to the winter 
calf-sheds. Then, after dismounting and leaving 
their two ponies in the bearbrush across the county 
road, Slinkey and the black walked up toward the 
main ranch-house. 

The latter stayed somewhat in the rear, holding 
Slinkey’s holster and gun, with the understanding 
that he should advance at the moment he consid¬ 
ered most opportune. The contrast in the sizes of 
the little foxlike Slinkey Drigges and his African 
had been known to work wonders in other raids. 

The usual ranch dog barked at Drigges’s arrival. 

A stumpy, withered man appeared in the yellow 

light shining from the open front door. Marty 

Lingo was past middle age, his brown eyes set 

much too close together in his long, sunburned 

face. When he saw the hunched tatterdemalion 

85 


86 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


who had stepped up to his veranda part of the 
anxiety faded from his face. He took on the 
challenging assurance of a little spaniel who has 
a bone to guard. 

“Who the hell are you?” he asked. 

“I’m a peace-lovin’ man, Marty,” Slinkey 
Drigges replied with the more subtly challenging 
air of a friendly cat. “I know you—every one in 
the county knows you, Marty. But like as not 
you ain’t never seen me before.” 

“No, I don’t reckon I have. What is it you 
want?” 

The ranch people by this time were curious to 
see the stranger at their threshold, and, accord¬ 
ingly, two women poked their faces over Marty’s 
square shoulders. One was a wrinkled and sun- 
faded woman, the other old and bleary-eyed. Be¬ 
hind the latter stood a lanky youth with a serious, 
flushed face, a shock of yellow hair, and an im¬ 
portant Adam’s apple. 

Marty Lingo, the two women and the overgrown 
youth were all apparently aware of the seriousness 
of this visit—the proceeds of their winter’s hard¬ 
ship, the spring round-up, and the visit to the 
shipping station with the beef herd were at stake. 





LINGO BOWS TO THE FEAR-SWAY 87 


Every man who came near the ranch that night— 
and until the money could be taken to the Cattleoe 
Bank—was to be looked on with the utmost 
suspicion. 

“It’s been a damned hot day, Marty,” Drigges 
wheedled, “and I’m right tired and dusty.” 

“Where’s your horse?” Marty asked suspi¬ 
ciously. “And if you hoofed it, how is it you got 
this fur without no grubstake and no gun?” 

The two women seemed relieved to have these 
points brought to their attention, and the lanky 
youth smirked his disgust at the littleness of 
Slinkey’s body. 

“Don’t be scared of that little seedwart, Marty!” 
the youth laughed. “If he wants any trouble I’ll 
twist his haid offen him.” 

“Oh, I don’t want no trouble, mister—I don’t 
want no trouble. I’m a peaceful man, and-” 

“Well, who are you? What’s your business?” 

“What’s yourn?” Slinkey snapped back sud¬ 
denly. 

“I’m a cattleman—and I ain’t figurin’ havin’ 
hoboes callin’ on me after dark.” 

“I ain’t a hobo.” 

“Then what are you?” 







88 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Slinkey had a definite answer to this. It was a 
card which would swiftly show the sort of hand 
he intended to play. 

“I’m a sheepman!” he rasped out. “That’s 
what I am—a sheepman.” 

“Well, then, damn your scurvy hide, what are 
you cornin’ to pay a social call on me for? This 
is a cow outfit?” 

“I’m the flockmaster for a outfit over thar by 
Mount Diablo. I got sheep all around here, and 
they’re nibblin’ away every bit of forage for ten 
miles all about you-” 

“Well, then, damn it, get outen here! I’ll grind 
your bones up with me hands. I’ll-” 

“And me, too,” said the youth, who edged his 
way in front of his wrinkled old mother. “I’ll 
pull your haid offen you like you was a chicken. 
I’ll-” 

“I’m goin’! I’m goin’!” Slinkey replied quickly. 
“But afore I go I want to make a little remark 
about them sheep of mine. If you-all ack friendly 
like I’ll call off my sheep. I’ll find pastures over 
on the other side of the mounting. But in order 
that I know you-all are goin’ to ack like my friends 
and agree with me that a peaceful life is the only 







LINGO BOWS TO THE FEAR-SWAY 89 


life, I w^nt for you to give me a little friendly 
gift-” 

“Which will be a broken jaw-” 

“Which will be a mashed, lousy carcass left of 
a damned ornery, nervy pup!” cried the youth. 

Marty stepped out of the door to the edge of the 
veranda, squaring off with double fists, when he 
noticed something which made him melt pal¬ 
pably. Behind the little foxlike, grinning Slinkey 
the huge form of a negro loomed in the darkness. 
This was the psychological moment that Black 
Spudds had chosen to present himself. 

Drigges saw the changed expression on Marty’s 
face, as well as the transformation that was laugh¬ 
ably obvious in his whole posture. 

“Which will be a broken jaw, eh?” Slinkey 
mocked. “Which will be a mashed carcass, eh? 
Hell, no! I’ll say which it will be! I’ll say it will 
be some money!” 

Marty Lingo paled, and the two women retreated 
with voiceless cries into the house. 

“We want your money, Mr. Marty Lingo,” 
Slinkey repeated. “And we want it just as a little 
gift. There ain’t goin’ to be no raidin’, no shootin’, 
no nothin’. Just a promise from me that I’ll take 






90 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


my sheep off and your range won’t be eaten away.” 

“If them two birds think they’ll get our money 
without a raid and without no fight,” the lanky 
youth cried, tearing himself away from the arms 
of his old women, “I’ll show them! I’ll fight ’em! 
They’s only two of ’em, and we’ll fight ’em, Marty. 
Let’s show ’em!” 

“No, no! Just a minute, Mr. Man!” Slinkey 
cried without stepping down from the veranda. 
“Let me come to an agreement with you first. And 
you, too, Mr. Lingo. You give me every dollar 
of the money you got for your beef herd which 
you sold up to the shippin’ station, or I’ll show 
you the next card that a sheepman plays when 
argufy in’ with a cattleman. And if you don’t think 
I will, let this here boy with the Adam’s apple 
chokin’ off his wind take another step up to me. 
Let him do it, and you’ll see the kind of game we 
sheepmen play.” 

Having snapped out this challenge, the little 
gunman put his fingers in his mouth and emitted 
a shrill whistle. 

“You ain’t sheepmen!” Marty cried. “I know 
who that nigger is. It’s one of the Gila’s gang. 




LINGO BOWS TO THE FEAR-SWAY 91 


You’re murderers, every one of you, and before 
you get a cent of my money I’ll-” 

“I’ll show ’em myself!” the youth cried. He 
shoved away the old woman who had been hanging 
to him and took a step toward the little mocking 
bandit. From the indefinite darkness of the chap¬ 
arral across the county road a flash of light and a 
sharp report answered the youth’s bragging. 

Marty saw that neither the little hunched figure 
on the veranda nor the giant negro behind him had 
drawn a gun. He saw also that the lanky youth 
who had defied the challenge of the Gila’s ambas¬ 
sador crumpled up in a ridiculous heap upon the 
veranda. 

The two women rushed from the seclusion of 
the house and kneeled down by the boy. 

“Now, then, ma, I ain’t hurt—it’s only a crease! 
Go on flightin’ the damned-” 

Marty, fired by anger as well as the words of 
his younger companion, shouted out: 

“You ain’t goin’ to get a cent of our money, I 
tell you! Not without you come over my daid 
body!” 

“Help us with the kid, Marty!” his wife cried 
frantically. “They’s men in the chaparral all 






92 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


around us! Come in before you get dropped at our 
feet!” 

“If you want to fight, take a look first at your 
bams,” Slinkey advised, pointing to the rear of 
the ranch-house. 

A brilliant red light was pulsating above the 
structure, throwing great wagging shadows across 
the corrals. Some of the ranch hands from the 
bunk-house were calling to Marty that his calf 
shed was burning. Cows were stampeding out 
into the open. 

For a moment the ranch owner found himself 
vainly yelling out a denial to the little grinning 
man in front of him, and at the same time trying 
to think what he could do in the midst of a scene 
of the wildest confusion. 

“I won't, damn you! Shoot us all! The Vigi¬ 
lantes will make you pay for this!” 

“Think of your womenfolk, Marty!” his wife 
called frantically. “Give them what they want. 
It’s better than having the whole place wiped out.” 

Marty paused in his string of oaths. In the mid¬ 
dle of the county road a masked man stood. Marty 
caught just a glimpse of the big yellow sombrero, 




LINGO BOWS TO THE FEAR-SWAY 93 


the black face, the eyes glittering in the reflection 
of the burning shacks. 

“It’s no use!” he cried despairingly. 

He realized that his ranch was burning down, 
his stockmen running every which way, screaming 
at each other, calling to him, and some, who caught 
sight of the tableau being posed in the front of the 
ranch, running panic-stricken for their shotguns. 

“Bring out the money, woman!” Marty called, 
raising his hands. “Don’t shoot me, you damned 
murderers! You’ll get what you want. But I’ll 
swear to God this is the end of the Gila and his 
gang. Old Peter Gaunt and his Vigilantes will 
ride to-night if there’s a man in the county alive 
to tell them of this damnable trick.” 

Ten minutes later Henry Sugg again mounted 
his horse. Still leading the black Crater, he con¬ 
ducted his victorious gang into the mountains be¬ 
hind the Lingo ranch. His men followed him as 
usual in a widely extended single file, with Slinkey 
Drigges leading. When well into the fastness of 
the mountains Sugg, still masked, waited for his 
lieutenant to catch up to him. 

“Here is your share of this loot,” he said. “And 
here is the money to be divided among the other 




94 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


two. Don’t follow me any farther, as I have other 
matters to attend to. To-morrow morning I will 
meet you-” 

“Where, chief?” 

“It must be near. I am not riding back into 
the desert to-night. We will meet in the Eastern 
Gap.” 

“The Eastern Gap?” Slinkey repeated. “That’s 
gettin’ close to civilization, chief.” 

“But no one rides through there now—not since 
the Jackson brothers were bumped off. Go back 
and tell the men we will meet at the Eastern Gap.” 

“All right, chief, but-” 

“That’s all.” 

Slinkey shook his head, then wheeled his horse 
and rode back to the rest of the gang. Sugg 
watched them, little black insect-like figures moving 
against the bare adobe hillside under the starlight. 
When he was assured they had completely disap¬ 
peared he turned his horse and rode down again 
to the Lingo ranch. 

The outfit was still in the wildest confusion. 
The stray cows were being punched up, bawling 
calves penned in a corral, and men were still beat¬ 
ing down the smoldering remnants of the fire. 







LINGO BOWS TO THE FEAR-SWAY 95 


Sugg skirted the outfit until he came to a small 
box canon on the eastern side, the only opening to 
which was a dry creek bed which cut directly 
through the ranch grounds. Under the protection 
of the thick chaparral, as well as the darkness of 
night, Sugg was able to sneak into this little gulch. 
Here he untied the halter of the big gelding he had 
been leading, lashed him with the end of his latigo, 
and watched him kick up and then gallop away 
toward the top of the canon. 

With the assurance that the horse would not 
wander out of that gulch without passing directly 
into the corrals of the Lingo ranch, Sugg rode out 
of the canon, mounted the steep adobe banks of 
the creek and again skirted the upper corrals, keep¬ 
ing himself constantly hidden in the brush. When 
he had approached as near to the outfit as he dared, 
he took the big yellow sombrero with its brilliantly 
beaded band and threw it sailing into the air so 
that it fell directly into the outermost corral. 

Having accomplished these two little deeds, he 
turned his horse for the trail which cut across the 
grazing grounds lying between the Lingo ranch and 
the city of Cattleoe. 

In Cattleoe he hoped—if his bay was capable of 




96 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


the speed and endurance it had shown in other 
races—to be the first one to tell Peter Gaunt of the 
atrocities which had just been committed at the 
Lingo cattle outfit. 




CHAPTER IX 


PETER GETS HIS POSSE 

Just before Sugg arrived at the Eldorado Hotel, 
Peter Gaunt was taking his “nightcap” of sherry 
before going to bed. Jennie Lee was trying to pass 
away the time in the sitting room of the little suite 
reading a novel. She knew that she would sleep 
little that night, particularly after the exciting 
evening she had spent listening to the conversation 
of her grandfather and his cronies. 

Needless to say the conversation centered about 
Tom Drury and his vow to rid the range of the Gila 
Monster. Most of the cattlemen and townspeople 
who visited old Gaunt that night seemed to con¬ 
sider the vow as the unfortunate boast of another 
doomed man. Drury would go the way of old 
Sheriff Horner and of the United States Marshal 
who had been killed by some of the Gila’s hench¬ 
men. Days would pass, perhaps searching parties 
would be sent out, and finally when the incident 

was all but forgotten, bits of evidence would be 

97 


98 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


picked up here and there. Perhaps a body would 
be found. Clews might point to some renegade 
Hopi who had disappeared across the border. It 
was the same old story. 

But this time there was one person who nursed 
a conviction that Tom Drury would succeed. It 
was Jennie Lee. Perhaps it was the romantic 
dreaming of a girl who had seen a man—for her 
sake—pit all his skill and strength in a life-and- 
death fight against an outlaw horse. At least Peter 
Gaunt took that view of her convictions. 

It was thus when Sugg rode into town, driving 
his exhausted horse up to the Eldorado Hotel and 
asking to see old Peter Gaunt, that Jennie Lee suf¬ 
fered a violent awakening. 

The Cholo servant ushered Sugg into the sitting 
room where she sat. 

“This is a great pleasure,” the visitor began 
obsequiously. 

She cut him off smoothly. “I suppose you came 
to see grandfather?” 

“Yes, and of course-” 

“I will call him.” 

“I have news about the Gila.” 

She had stepped to the door, but now she paused 






PETER GETS HIS POSSE 


99 


suddenly. This word had caught her as effectually 
as if Sugg had with his usual dexterity flipped a 
lass-rope over her shoulders. 

“The Gila!” she cried, turning. “Then you 
have news about Tom Drury?” 

“Perhaps. The Gila raided Lingo’s place to¬ 
night. A man was shot-” 

“Not Tom Drury?” 

Sugg paused in the act of rolling a cigarette. 
He studied the girl’s anxious and beautiful face 
with every mark of approval. It was the first time 
she had lifted her face to him so unreservedly. 
Her brown eyes had darkened almost to black, 
because of the dilated pupils; her hair under the 
artificial light was turned to a silken, Titian red, 
and her cheeks were softened to a delicate velvet 
pallor. 

“Tom Drury’s bragging unfortunately did not 
succeed in frightening the Gila. Another raid has 
been accomplished as if nothing had been said.” 

“But is Tom Drury safe?” the girl demanded. 

“You seem concerned in a very peculiar way 
for the safety of this man. He is a stranger, you 
must remember. None of us know who he is or 
where he came from. If I might be so bold-” 






100 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Don’t say anything against him—he has shown 
himself to be a very generous and a heroic 
man-” 

“Not yet-” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“How do you or I or any of us know who this 
man is? A stranger riding into town purporting 
to be from some out-of-the-way ranch down in 
Texas? Perhaps. At least before you call him a 
great man and heroic and generous—and surren¬ 
der your heart to him-” 

“I don’t want your advice, Mr. Sugg. I know 
where to surrender my heart. And I know why 
you are belittling this man to me.” 

“Because I am jealous.” 

“All right, if you want to admit it. I would 
not have said it.” 

“But I am. You know that I am jealous of any 
man who’d so much as smile at you. You know 
that I am in love with you—that I-” 

“You came here to see my grandfather?” she 
reminded him calmly. 

“To see you—first. To ask if you will wait— 
only a little while before you put all your faith in 








PETER GETS HIS POSSE 


101 


this—this stranger from Texas. I beg you to wait 
to take my warning-” 

“Sometimes it is not necessary for a woman to 
wait. Some men are bad at first sight—and some 
are good. I have my convictions about Tom 
Drury, and there is no single doubt.” 

“Perhaps not now. But later, we shall see.” 

“I will call my grandfather.” 

When Peter Gaunt came in, his granddaughter 
did not accompany him. 

The old ranger wore a plush embroidered dress¬ 
ing-gown of a style twenty years or more out of 
date. He was surprised at the dusty, bedraggled 
appearance of his visitor who on all other occasions 
had appeared immaculately dressed. 

“Looks like you been doing some hard ridin’, 
Sugg,” Gaunt remarked dryly. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s time for you to call the Vigilantes together, 
chief,” Sugg replied. “There’s been another raid 
—and one done as slick as ever—Marty Lingo’s 
outfit.” 

“The Gila?” 

“Undoubtedly. A stocktender told me about it 
while I was riding on the road from Lingo’s to 





102 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


town here. The place was partly burned down. 
Young Dick Holser was potted-” 

“Killed?” 

“Don’t know that—potted anyway. And Marty 
Lingo’s roll gone.” 

“Hell! It was his money for his beef herd. 
He’s worked like a slave all winter—and so has 
his womenfolk!” 

“Are you going to let it go?” 

“Like hell!” the old man roared. “I’ll ride out 
to-night. That’s what I’ll do! We’ll get the whole 
gang together-” 

“And the sheriff?” 

“The sheriff be damned. It’ll be the Vigilantes 
and nothin’ else. But what more do you know? 
Where’ll we ride to? It’ll be the same old wild- 
goose chase!” 

“Not this time, chief. I think I’ve got a little 
clew. While I was riding on the county road 
below Lingo’s place I saw four riders cutting 
across for the desert mesa. One of ’em was 
masked and riding a black horse which as near as 
I could make out was giving him trouble. The 
stars were shining and I couldn’t see anything 
more except that suddenly the old nag took it into 






PETER GETS HIS POSSE 


103 


his head to buckjump. Don’t know why. Must 
have been just a low ornery horse. And it sure 
did do some cake-walking. Damned if it wasn’t as 
bad as the fight that outlaw of yours put up against 
Tom Drury here in town. The rider stuck on a 
while and his three companions passed him riding 
like hell-” 

“It was the Gila’s gang. He always rides with 
them three men!” 

“Sure it was the Gila! Well, chief, I hid in the 
brush and watched that horse throw his 'rider flat 
and then gallop like mad up toward the box canon 
behind Lingo’s place.” 

“And the rider?” 

“He started to foot it across the desert toward 
the big mesa. If his companions don’t come back 
for him he’ll be taking a good long walk, I’m tell¬ 
ing you. And if you get your Vigilantes together, 
there is a chance we might get over there to that 
mesa before sun-up.” 

“It’s a slim chance we could find him,” the chief 
said. “His men will most likely come back for 
him-” 

“They aren’t overly fond of him, chief, I’ll tell 






104 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


- 


you that. And they know Lingo will be raising a 
howl all over the country about his money.” 

“It’s a slim chance,” Gaunt repeated, “but we’ll 
take it.” 

“At least we might find the horse he was riding, 
chief,” Sugg suggested enthusiastically. “And 
who knows but that might give us a clew.” 

“We’ll ride,” Gaunt decided. “And we’ll comb 
the whole range this time, all night long, and all 
day to-morry, and from then on until we get this 
bird and his whole murderin’ cutthroat gang. And 
I’ll tell you this, Mr. Sugg, and you can tell it to 
every one—that I ain’t goin’ to bring the outlaw 
back for a trial. I’m goin’ to finish him up proper 
and turn his body over to the sheriff. There ain’t 
goin’ to be no jury nor no judge settin’ over this 
bird. Unless it’s a coroner’s jury—and the judge 
will be myself, Peter Gaunt!” 

“That’s talkin’, chief. How about my riding 
through town and rounding up a posse quietlike 
for you?” 

“Just the Vigilantes. Remember that, Sugg. 
With clean guns and with cay uses that will stand 
desert travel. None of their stall-fed saddle horses. 





PETER GETS HIS POSSE 


105 


Tell ’em to meet out at Donkey Bluffs two hours 
from now.” 

Sugg clanged across the floor and hurried out 
to perform his mission. When he was gone Gaunt 
immediately called his granddaughter and told her 
of his decision. 

“Grandpa, if you are going to risk your life on 
this hunt, I am going with you.” 

Peter Gaunt called his Cholo servant, ordered 
his riding outfit, rifle, holster, and six-shooter, and 
started to pull on his jack-boots. 

“Little gal, you make me laugh. This here ride 
I am going on ain’t going to be no fox-hunt for 
little ladies like you.” 

“You have said yourself that you were too old 
for any more desert riding, grandpa. I am-” 

“I am going with the best posse in the country,” 
Gaunt interrupted. “There will be Gaskin and 
Blowfly Jones, and Marty Lingo himself will join 
us when we reach his ranch. It’s going to be a 
finish fight.” 

“Perhaps I will never see you again, grandpa, 
if I let you ride away like this. Think of the 
chances against your coming back.” 

“My dad never thought of chances.” Gaunt 





106 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


clamped his holster on over the big frock coat. 
“This here is one time I am going without no hesi¬ 
tation. When I meets up with the bandit I am 
going to make sure he is my man and then I am 
going to ask him to look up a tree without the 
advice of no judge nor jury nor sheriff. No hesi¬ 
tatin’ for me! I’ve been too cautious. From now 
on you’ll never hear folks say the name ‘Cautious 
Peter’ again. And look here, gal, don’t worry! I 
promise you one thing: I will send a rider back to 
you in the morning to let you know how things 
are going with me. And when we meet up with 
any of the Gila’s gang I will let you know the 
result, which is that we have pulled off the tight¬ 
rope act and are bringing the remains home.” 

“If I can’t come,” the girl said, “I want you to 
promise me, if, when you are riding over the range, 
you should come across Tom Drury, arid he is in 
trouble-” 

“Tom Drury?” old Gaunt repeated almost as if 
he had forgotten his name. “That damned brag¬ 
gart? All right! All right! I’ll help him—the 
damned four-flusher—since you have set your 
heart on his being a bona fide go-getter, which he 
ain’t, I will help him.” 






PETER GETS HIS POSSE 


107 


“And let me know about him, grandpa. He 
might be wounded. He might be dying. If he said 
he was going to get the Gila it means he will fight 
him when he sees him. I am afraid now that he 
has seen him. And perhaps lost out in the fight. 
Otherwise he would not have let these terrible 
things happen. I am afraid he is in trouble.” 

“Forget about him, gal, and forget about the 
danger to all of us. Pray for us, if it’ll do your 
heart any good. I ain’t figuring on any prayers 
getting us better horses or cleaner guns, so you 
don’t have to ask no help from on high for me and 
my men. All I want is that the Gila don’t have no 
prayers on his side.” 

The Cholo servant came into the room and an¬ 
nounced to Gaunt that his horse was saddled and 
ready. 

“Damned if I don’t wish I had a horse like 
Crater to ride,” Peter said as he kissed his grand¬ 
daughter good-by. “And damned if I don’t wish 
I had that there six-gun with the single action.” 

“Tom Drury will use them!” the girl cried. 
“Remember, grandpa, when you see him I want 
to know-” 

“I will remember, gal.” 





108 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Half an hour later Peter Gaunt was well on the 
road toward Donkey Bluffs. In the starlight he 
could see horsemen trailing across the plain in 
every direction and concentrating on the point 
where the posse was to form. The first of the 
Vigilantes to join the chief was Henry Sugg. 

“Mr. Sugg,” the chief said as Sugg drove up to 
him, “when the Vigilantes is all mustered, I’ll be 
asking you to lead the way to where you seen that 
there bucking horse!” 

“Look here, chief,” Sugg replied, “I’ve been 
thinking hard since last talking to you, and I’ve 
come to the conclusion that the bucker I saw was 
your own outlaw, Crater.” 

“The hell you say!” 

“Mind you I’m not certain, chief. It was star¬ 
light and I was hiding in the chaparral. But the 
way I’ve been figuring is this: What if that horse 
was your bucker? Isn’t there a chance that fellow 
Tom Drury who came into town as a stranger— 
giving out that he was from Texas—and-” 

Gaunt interrupted: 

“I’ll be damned!” 

“Nobody knows Tom Drury, chief, and as I was 
given to understand by the barkeep at the Eldorado, 





PETER GETS HIS POSSE 


109 


he finally refused to take a guide into the desert 
with him-” 

“Yes, I heard that, but-” 

“This Gila is supposed to lead a double life, 
chief, and-” 

“Yes, yes, I know!” old Gaunt interrupted. He 
was silent for a moment, during which he bared his 
silver hair and scratched his head pensively. “I’ll 
be-” 

“You get my point, chief?” 

“Tom Drury—a stranger—my outlaw bucker!” 

“That’s the first little ray of light, eh, chief?” 

“I’ll need a hell of a lot more light to see clear, 
Mr. Sugg. And I’m goin’ to play plumb cautious.” 
They waited for the posse to gather, and as they 
waited Gaunt mumbled repeatedly to himself: 
“Well, I’ll be damned!” 








CHAPTER X 


DRURY AWAKES 

The greater part of the night Tom Drury had been 
trudging doggedly toward the east. 

When, during the previous afternoon, he had 
been roped by Henry Sugg and divested of his 
horse, hat and gun, he set himself immediately to 
the almost hopeless task at hand. He emptied the 
duffel-bag of its heaviest contents—the cans in par¬ 
ticular, saving enough for a few days’ hike. Al¬ 
though his throat was choking with thirst, he was 
determined to save the whisky for his supper. He 
could have eaten nothing without it. Tying the 
duffel-bag over his shoulder after the manner of 
a knapsack, he started out with a steady gait toward 
the eastern crest of the mesa, where in their morn¬ 
ing’s ride they had passed the dry pool. 

The sun had beaten down heavily upon his head 
that afternoon. The only protection was the big 
bandanna he had tied pirate fashion about his fore¬ 
head and ears. As he tramped on, fortified against 


DRURY AWAKES 


111 


nausea by big chunks of raisins, and fighting his 
thirst with a constant dragging at tobacco, night 
came, and the desert was more merciful. The 
walking was slow because of the mesquite, and 
the pony trails, which were mere furrows of sand, 
afforded scant help. 

In the earlier part of the night he stopped by a 
clump of barrel cactus—the last hope of water for 
the desert-traveler. Here he built a fire. There 
was no use traveling in secret now. If the Gila 
himself already knew where to find him, there was 
no other danger to avoid. He crushed water from 
the cactus pulp, sucked out the drink and then fell 
to his supper of fried potatoes, boned ham warmed 
over the fire at the end of a pronged stick, and a 
good gulp of whisky. He finished his meal with 
Baker’s chocolate and more drags of his cigarette 
to numb the thirst-tortured nerves of his mouth. 
After this he slept. 

From side to side he tossed in the warm sand, 
disturbed by vivid dreams, the call of coyote and 
wail of the wind. When he opened his eyes he 
stared into a sky brilliant with starlight. For a 
while he felt free, because the sight of stars over 
him as he lay on his back for a night’s lodging was 




112 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


a familiar and homelike thing. He had ridden 
night herds in just such lonely fastnesses with the 
same tang of mesquite in the air, the same touch 
of the desert wind turned suddenly cold, but still 
redolent with the odor of sage, greasewood, and 
spice-tree. He felt free, but he knew that he was 
not. He knew, as he thought over his situation 
clearly in the stillness of the night, that he was as 
much a prisoner as if the Gila had put him behind 
bars. The outlaw preferred imprisoning his men 
in a desert to holding them in cabins or cellars. 
For the latter he could be blamed as a kidnaper, 
a brigand. For Drury’s present plight the desert 
could be blamed. And the desert was more 
inexorable than iron bars. 

From then until just before dawn the Gila 
haunted his dream. Part of the time it was a real 
Gila Monster crawling into his life; a hideous, 
splotchy, red lizard with square, black snout. A 
lizard which poisons, not with poison glands, but 
with the decayed animal stuff tucked in behind its 
teeth. 

Drury shuddered at the thought and squirmed 
restively. 

Henry Sugg’s wind-tanned face was smiling at 




DRURY AWAKES 


113 


him—not grinning, but with a pleasant winsome 
smile which sharpened and broke to a gleam of 
teeth. Sugg was wily, suave, soft tongued, crafty. 

“He will not kill me himself,” Drury grumbled. 
“He will send others to kill me.” 

He dozed again, rolling over and cursing be¬ 
cause of the bum of his neck. “But damned if I 
won’t go on fighting. I’ve just begun! He’s left 
me everything to fight with:—my life—my hands! 
Thinks he can rope me and corral me in his desert! 
You made a mistake, Gila Monster, leaving me my 
life and my bare hands!” 

He jumped up with a start. Then, feeling again 
the soft, cool wind with its pungent, delicious scent 
of sage, he came to himself. The stars were above, 
as at any cow camp on the plains in riding night 
herd. He wished fervently for the distant song of 
cowboys quieting a mill of steers, but there was 
only the doleful wind, and all about him in the 
light of stars and the gray dawn he saw forms like 
tree-boles or pronged cactus. 

Drury stared. He laughed softly to himself. 
A cigarette rolled, the flare of a match and a few 
drags; then he stared again. 

Yes, they were “forms.” He could not remem- 






114 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


ber if there had been pronged sojuara all about 
him. There had been barrel cactus, from which 
he had crushed a bitter, soothing drink. But there 
were no forms like giant mushrooms. The tops of 
the mushrooms were sombreros. He looked from 
one to the other and they moved. Some were 
crouching. He shrugged his shoulders with a sort 
of hopeless abandon. 

“I knew he’d send them after me. Damned 
lizard, afraid to even pot me with his own hand! 
All right, gents, what do you want?” 

“We want you, Mr. Gila Monster.” 

For a moment Drury was convinced that these 
forms surrounding him in the gray glow of dawn 
were apparitions. And, furthermore, the voice 
that had come low, cool, steady, had said a most 
confusing thing. Drury recalled his dreams of 
Sugg. Sugg was the Gila, there had been no doubt 
about that. But here was a man speaking for a 
group of tall, silent, waiting figures, accusing him 
—Drury—of being the Gila. 

Then a flood of light came into his confused, 
sunheated brain. 

Sugg’s parting words had been that Drury him¬ 
self would be called the Gila. 




DRURY AWAKES 


115 


“Don’t put your hands into your pockets agin for 
tobacco,” the same voice came out. “Gestures of 
that sort ain’t considered overly polite—particular 
when the chief of the Vigilantes says to a man, 
‘Mr. Man, I want you!’ ” 

“Are you the chief?” Drury shouted out. 

“I am Peter Gaunt, chief, and this here is my 
posse got up as a escort for to do military honors 
during the ceremony which we are about to per¬ 
form!” 

“If it’s honest-to-God you, Peter Gaunt, I’m 
thankin’ my lucky stars. My life is saved. Step 
up and take me, chief. Put the cuffs on me. Any¬ 
thing. So long as I smell leather again and feel 
the sweat of a horse, I’m praising God!” 

The men began to close in cautiously, so that 
Drury could see the grim mouths under the jet- 
black shadow of the sombreros. 

“Watch out thar, men. I don’t want to have no 
gun-throwin’. And he’d drop a few of us afore 

we could get him. You seen how he handled 

» 

Crater back in town!” 

“Then you do know who I am!” Drury laughed. 

“Damned right.” 





116 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Peter Gaunt stepped forward while a half dozen 
barrels were focused on Drury’s head. 

“There you are. It’s all right now, men. I 
played cautiouslike. We could have dropped him. 
But Cautious is my name!” 

Gaunt hitched a few knots of a lariat about 
Tom’s hands, and an audible sigh of relief escaped 
from the men, as if for all that time they had 
been holding their breath. 

“Now, then, Mr. Bronc-peeler. You’re finished. 
You came into town and shined up to my little gal 
and busted old Crater and snorted around like you 
was one of our leading citizens! But your game 
didn’t work, Mr. ‘Cowboy from Texas’!” 

“I tell you I am from Texas, and I-” 

“And this here posse is from Missouri,” the old 
man shot back. “I always did hear the Gila was 
supposed to be masqueradin’ about as a leading 
citizen—but I never knew he give out that he was 
a cowboy from Texas. That’s a good one!” 

The rest of the Vigilantes, now that Tom was 
roped, joined in a much heartier laugh. 

“Well, Mr. Cowboy, we got a little Texas cattle 
boss for you-all to ride,” Gaunt announced. 

“I’m laughing at you, Peter Gaunt!” Drury 





DRURY AWAKES 


117 


said. “You’re pulling off something here that’ll 
make you the laughing-stock of the country the 
rest of your life.” 

“I reckon so.” 

The gang joined again in a hearty guffaw as 
they went down into the gulch to get their mus¬ 
tangs. Every man among them was a formidable- 
looking figure in the dawn. Each one wore shoul¬ 
der holster as well as cartridge belt and a gun on 
the thigh. Some of them shoved up their som¬ 
breros to wipe sweat from their foreheads; others 
lit cigarettes, the flare of matches illuminating red, 
stern, bristling jaws. 

Drury reflected that this crowd had evinced 
enough caution when first surrounding him to show 
that they were playing no joke. He was convinced 
that every rider there thought he was the Gila. 
Henry Sugg had played his game—whatever it 
was—with a consummate skill. 

One man of the posse Drury had not yet seen. 
It was the man who had remained in the gulch 
with the horses. 

“Sheriff,” Drury said, “I’ll tell you now—and 
prove it by half a dozen different ways—that 
you’ve got the wrong man.” 





.118 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“We didn’t expect you to admit you were the 
Gila when you've succeeded in keeping it a dead 
secret for ten years.” 

“Take me to town, chief, and I’ll get half the 
population as witnesses.” 

“Take you into town—wow!” 

The other riders voiced their astonishment at 
this suggestion. “Whoop-ee! Take him to town! 
Zowie! The hell of a chance!” 

“And why not?” 

“They’d lynch you before we passed the first 
ranch house!” Gaunt exclaimed. “And I never 
give up my man once I get him. I act cautiouslike. 
No lynching. Cautious is my name.” 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. But if you aren’t 
going to take me to town, where do you intend 
riding?” 

“Nowheres. We’ll take you up here in the hills 
where my dad used to string up his catches.” 

“And a trial?” 

“A trial?” This was also the subject of excla¬ 
mations—and laughter. 

“If you take it into your hands to string me up 
without a trial—that’s lynching. Your caution 
isn’t going to help me much.” 





DRURY AWAKES 


119 


“No, not much. But I’m plumb cautious just 
the same.” 

They came down into the gulch where the horses 
were waiting. It was then that Tom had his first 
glimpse of the man tending the horses. 

The glimpse shocked him, as if he had seen a 
man step out of his dreams and appear suddenly 
in flesh and blood. It was as if a horrible malig¬ 
nant spirit had incarnated itself into something 
not of its own world. And yet, when this first 
qualm of puzzlement and fear was conquered, 
Drury saw the whole truth of his situation in a 
flash. And the truth, simple as it was, did not 
relieve him. It stupefied him. 

The glimpse he had was swift, indelible; it 
came and went with the flare of a match. The 
man was lighting a cigarette with a maddening 
nonchalance, and the light, the highest color in 
the whole scene, fell upon the smiling mouth, the 
dark, olive-colored cheeks, the blue jaw, the black 
shining eyes of Henry Sugg. 




CHAPTER XI 


DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 

As the men mounted their horses Drury turned to 
Peter Gaunt: 

“Look here, chief, you can’t let a farce like 
this go on. I’m not the man you want. You know 
I’m Tom Drury, the man who came into Cattleoe 
and broke your horse, and made a vow to get the 
Gila. Well, the Gila’s caught, chief, and if you 
give me time I’ll prove to you that I’m innocent 
and that the man you want is right there!” 

Gaunt answered without so much as looking 
over his shoulder at the horseman Drury was 
accusing. “You are the man we want,” he said. 
“Your talk is no good. The case is absolutely 
slick and there ain’t nothin’ under the sun or moon 
that’ll help you.” 

“But I tell you you’ve got the Gila! I can prove 
it! There he is-” 

This time Gaunt glanced back at the man at 

whom Drury pointed. Henry Sugg was suavely 

120 



DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 


121 


smoking the cigarette he had just lighted. It did 
not appear that the accusation of this desperate 
man could in the slightest degree disturb his 
equanimity. 

“Who in the hell are you pointing at?” Gaunt 
asked. 

“At Henry Sugg. I’m swearing to you before 
God, chief, that the man you want is Henry Sugg! 
He took me into the desert, and-” 

The Vigilantes burst out in a roar of laughter. 
If this was the way their prisoner intended to prove 
his innocence there could be no further doubt in 
their minds as to his guilt. 

“Like as not he’s been drinking sojuaro sap,” 
Henry Sugg laughed, turning to his horse and 
mounting. “If he’s got a hallucination like that, 
chief, I’ll say it don’t bother me in the slightest. 
How about taking him directly over to Marty 
Lingo’s and seeing if we can’t clinch the case 
against him?” 

Gaunt thought a moment before leading his 
posse down the trail. 

“Look here, Mr. Gila Monster,” he began, turn¬ 
ing to Tom. “I said there ain’t the slightest ghost 
of a chance that we’re wrong in this here business. 





122 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


But I don’t want for my men here to see me bust 
right off into a lynch party without a second 
thought. They call me Cautious Peter—and I 
reckon, after all, that ain’t such a slouch of a name. 
At least, my old dad who hanged your forbears 
wasn’t called a lynch judge. And I don’t aim to 
be called one, neither. I’ll tell you what I’m goin’ 
to do: I’m goin’ to take you over to Lingo’s out¬ 
fit, as this here Henry Sugg suggests. We’ll get 
what evidence we can concernin’ the raid you 
pulled off last night, and then we’ll give you a 
regular trial up there in the little town behind 
Lingo’s, where in the old days my dad acted as 
sheriff and hanged you birds. I’ll promise you 
this much, since you’re plumb down and out: 
we’ll stage a regular trial up thar, a peaceable one, 
and then hang you after the trial. If that don’t 
suit, cork up and don’t let me hear another word 
from you till we get there. And, lookee here,” 
the old man added as he turned his horse down 
the trail, “if you go accusin’ any more of us bein’ 
the Gila, I’ll hang you first and have the trial 
after!” 

They jogged on for a while without further 
remarks. The jingle of spurs, the retch of leather 




DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 


123 


and the intermittent beating of the hoofs against 
pebbles covered the silence. 

Finally the chief turned to one of his Vigilantes, 
a loose-jointed man with popping, red eyes and 
bulging face muscles, who had the reputation 
among his companions as being a braggart and 
something of a coward. 

“Look here, Clout,” the chief said, “I reckon 
now that the danger’s over we can do without you 
on this here expedition, so I’m goin’ to send you 
with a message to my gal.” 

“Better send two of us, chief,” Clout Gomery 
suggested. “If I’m ridin’ alone I might meet up 
with this here Gila’s gang. They’re liable to be 
hangin’ around somewheres, waitin’ to snipe-shoot 
us.” 

“I reckon you can handle three men with that 
thar six-shooter, Clout,” the chief said dryly. 

“I reckon perhaps so, chief, but-” 

“And when you get into Cattleoe,” Gaunt went 
on, without heeding the objection, “tell my gal 
that we seen the enemy and he’s ourn.” 

“The sun’s up,” Henry Sugg remarked, laugh¬ 
ing. “You can make the trip safe enough with 
the sun up, Clout.” 







124 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“All right, chief,” Clout said, swallowing un¬ 
comfortably as his gaze went across the lonely 
desert. “If I get to Cattleoe I’ll tell the gal that 
you seen the enemy and he’s youm. Is that all, 
chief?” 

Gaunt dropped back to Clout’s side and lowered 
his voice. 

“She wanted to know something about Tom 
Drury, Clout,” he said. “And I promised I’d let 
her know. Tell her that Drury himself is the Gila 
and that when he came into Cattleoe day before 
yesterday he was masqueradin’ like.” 

“I’ll explain it to her, chief. I got a good way 
with wimmenfolk.” 

Gaunt spurred his horse and again took the lead 
at the head of the little posse, riding by Drury’s 
side. 

“We’ll stop at the Lingo outfit,” he remarked. 
“And after seeing in broad daylight how you 
messed it up last night, maybe you won’t have the 
face to deny who you are.” 

“Never heard of the Lingo outfit,” Drury pro¬ 
tested. 

“And I guess they wished they’d never heard 
of you.” 




DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 


125 


The Lingo ranch was a good two hours’ ride 
from the mesa, and to reach it the riders cut 
northward over the sage plain, the first rays of 
the sun casting long shadows of horses and men 
over the flat, sand spaces. As they cantered up 
into the rolling foothills which bordered the north 
of the desert, Drury had his first sight of the cow 
farm. 

Around a shabby, unpainted, sun-warped ranch 
house was grouped an indiscriminate bunch of 
calf-sheds, bunk-houses, and barns. Of one of 
these, Drury observed, little remained but a 
charred black skeleton. The whole outfit, in fact, 
seemed to be in serious disorder. Hog-tied fences 
were smashed through, tangled strands of cattle- 
proof wire were all that remained of some of the 
corrals, and ranch-hands stood about hatless, idle, 
dazed. 

“Now, then, men,” the chief said to his posse, 
“keep your shotguns handy. Stay in your saddles, 
and play cautious. I don’t want no mob violence.” 

The ranchmen came down through the corrals 
to meet the chief. For the first time Drury looked 
upon the long head and woeful, narrow-set eyes of 
Marty Lingo. 




126 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Well, we got your man for you, Marty,” Gaunt 
announced. “And it’s the first time the Gila was 
ever took.” 

Lingo glanced up furtively at Tom Drury, who 
was seated in his saddle with bound hands laid 
across the pommel, his head and ears still swathed 
in the piratelike bandanna which he had put on 
the night before. 

The ranchers behind Lingo held back, staring, 
with every mark of awe written on their wrinkled, 
sun-reddened faces. 

After his first moment of speechlessness in the 
presence of this famous “brigand,” Lingo looked 
about at the shotgun deputies surrounding' the 
prisoner and presently found his tongue. 

“Chief! He’s done this job up brown—just like 
he done it over to the X L outfit. My best ranch- 
hand is shot and the money I got for my herd has 
went!” 

“He’s got to hang!” another rancher cried. 

“He’ll hang, all right,” the chief assented. 
“But I want for him to hang legal-like.” 

“Lynch him!” a third burst out. “Lookee what 
he done, chief! The barn—poor Marty had to 
borrow money on his beef-herd to put it up and 





DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 


127 


look at it now—like a bunch of black cactus over 
thar.” 

“Sure!” Marty broke in. “And my vaquero, 
Dick Holser-” 

“I ain’t forgettin’ him,” Gaunt put in. 

“He’s in the house with the ole woman, chief. 
Plugged proper. If the doctor from Cattleoe don’t 
shag out’n here in a hurry, they’s liable to be 
another death chalked up to this gunman.” 

“Lynch him!” one of his companions repeated. 
“ ’Tain’t only money he’s responsible for, but lynch 
him for what he done to old Widder Holser’s boy!” 

“Give ’em a tight-rope party, chief, here and 
now!” a burly cowman yelled out. “Remember, 
chief, the whole countryside’s with him. He’ll get 
off yet!” 

“Now hold on, gents,” Gaunt objected. “I agree 
with you, he’s got to hang for what he done. But 
I want to see everything done calm and orderly. 
They ain’t to be no mob violence while I’m chief 
of the Vigilantes. If you-all are afraid my pris¬ 
oner will get away, then get your cayuses and your 
six-guns and come along with me. I grant you 
every one’s goin’ to be satisfied. But no mob 
stuff. If they’s any lynchin’ it’s got to be done by 





128 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


me. I won’t have it said of ole Peter Gaunt that 
they’s any lynchin’ goin’ on in his county without 
his consent.” 

“You’re doing this business right,” Henry Sugg 
put in. There was a marked contrast between his 
calm, oily voice and the excited husky voices of 
all the others. “Don’t by any means take him 
back to the city.” 

Drury, instead of breaking into a thunder of 
oaths, checked himself. He was pale with anger; 
he decided to bide his time. 

Little Marty Lingo took off his sombrero and 
scratched a moist bald head. “If you want us to 
get our saddle hosses,” he remarked, “I take it 
you’re goin’ travelin’ with this bird before you 
stage the hangin’?” 

“Just travelin’ fur enough so’s our hangin’ will 
be a peaceful one,” the chief decreed. 

“And that’ll be where—in Cattleoe?” 

“Hell, no! If I took this gent to Cattleoe there’d 
be a mob fight in the middle of the street, and it’s 
too long a journey besides! I’m goin’ to stage the 
hangin’ right away, and I’m ridin’ up into the 
mountains here to them little forsaken shacks which 
used to be called Desolation. In that thar town 





DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 


129 


we’ll administer our own justice without the city 
folks and judges and mayors messin’ in.” 

“Or the Gila’s own men attacking you before 
you could get back to the city,” Henry Sugg re¬ 
minded him. 

“I reckon a hanging at Desolation would be 
satisfactory to us all,” Marty Lingo said, seconded 
by the group of ranchers at his side. 

“And afore we hit out for the trail,” the chief 
added, “I want for you to bring all the evidence 
as you’ve got ag’in’ this gent, because when we 
get to Desolation I’m figurin’ on pullin’ off a 
regular trial.” 

“Evidence!” Lingo cried. “Is there any doubt 
about this bird?” 

“Absolutely not. But you cain’t have a trial 
without you have evidence.” 

“But you can have a hangin’ without evidence!” 
a ranch hand brayed out. 

Marty Lingo interrupted the argument. “I ain’t 
askin’ for a lynchin’, chief, despite the wrong done 
me. I’ll offer a bit of evidence, and it’s all any 
law-abidin’ man would want for to convict this 
here road agent. We got his horse. It come wan- 




130 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


derin’ down the creek last night from the box 
canon up behind my barn.” 

Gaunt and Henry Sugg exchanged palpably sig¬ 
nificant glances. 

“Bring the hoss along,” ordered Gaunt. “When 
we get to Desolation we’ll start off our trial intro¬ 
ducin’ the hoss. We’ll call it Exhibit A.” 

Drury listened to this argument with a glum, 
stoical interest. The fact that Peter Gaunt was 
protecting him from an immediate lynching gave 
him hope. For the time being he decided to keep 
quiet. Every one was convinced of his guilt. Per¬ 
haps if he waited until the arrival at Desolation 
he could think up a convincing defense. A few 
faked-up exhibits he was certain would give him a 
chance to show the mockery of the whole case. 
Even this horse they were talking of could be used 
not as a proof against him, but as a proof of his 
complete innocence. His horse he could easily 
point out, was Crater, an outlaw he had broken in 
a city lot before a mob of people. 

The chief waited for the return of the ranchers 
who had gone for their mounts and guns. Drury 
looked toward the bams expectantly to see what 




DRURY SEES HIS CRIMES 


131 


sort of a horse they were going to foist upon him 
as his own. 

When he saw what Marty Lingo led out of the 
corral he realized with a shock the full seriousness 
of his position. Sugg, the Gila, had played his 
game with unbeatable, almost uncanny, perfection. 
The tremendous power, the trickiness, the merci¬ 
less irony of the Gila and his methods were re¬ 
vealed to Drury in one flash. His case from then 
on, he knew, would he practically hopeless; he had 
bucked something too indomitable, too mighty. 

Snubbed to Lingo’s pommel was the big gelding 
Crater. When it was brought to join the troop of 
horses it passed close to the prisoner. Old Crater 
did not look up at the man who had mastered him. 
Instead he let out a snort, partly of disdain, partly 
of distress. 

“Let me ride the old horse,” Drury said. 

“And lead us a chase into Californy?” was the 
chief’s laconic answer. 




CHAPTER XII 


THE ACCUSED 

Drury came to the conclusion that, although the 
chief was objecting strenuously to a premature 
hanging, he was in reality merely “saving” his 
prisoner for a mock trial and a private lynching. 
He recalled the fact that Sugg, not satisfied with 
disarming him and leaving him helpless in the 
desert, had actually used his horse as a piece of 
damning evidence. 

The hat, of which he had been deprived at a 
time when a hat was most needed, would probably 
be used as another undeniable proof of his guilt. 
The fact that he had been left in the desert under 
the boiling sun without his hat was apparently a 
secondary condition with his persecutor. It ap¬ 
peared that Sugg wanted to use the hat as one of 
the strands in his deftly cast net. No sooner had 
these thoughts come to Drury’s mind than little 

Marty Lingo called one of his vaqueros, who held 

132 


THE ACCUSED 


133 


in his hand a big sombrero with beaded Hopi 
design. 

Old Gaunt took the hat, twirling it on his up¬ 
raised forefinger. “This here sombrero, gents, 
will be Exhibit B.” He turned to Drury. “I 
reckon you-all will be needin’ this durin’ the rest 
of our ride up to Desolation,” he said. “The sun 
will he heatin’ down hot toward noon.” 

Drury set his jaw, resigning himself for the 
moment to the grim fate which was enveloping 
him. As he thought of this second dastardly trick 
of the Gila Monster he felt that his fate was ines¬ 
capable. It was the same feeling he had had the 
day before when he saw the noose of the lass-rope 
poising above his head. 

Just before the posse started on its ride into the 
mountains Lingo’s wife came out of the ranch- 
house, followed by the mother of the wounded 
vaquero. Both were pale, sun-faded women, 
broken by the life of the ranch. Marty’s wife was 
grim, with a set look of triumph on her mouth as 
she stared up at the dreaded prisoner. But the old 
mother, a wretched wisp of a woman, was weeping. 

“Now go back and tend to that boy that’s 




134 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


wounded,” Marty ordered. “We don’t want no 
women bawlin’ about this here lynching party.” 

Marty’s wife held up her fist to Drury. 

“I ain’t bawlin’ about you, murderer that you 
are! It’s about us I’m worritin’. How can you 
repay us by hangin’ up on a sycamore limb? How 
can you pay the drudgery I’ve went through? 
You’ve ruined us—and you’ve shot up our men! 
And you’ve killed the cattlemen all about us as 
wants to keep law and order! It’s only the cow¬ 
ards you let go on livin’ their lives like desert rats 
in holes. But we weren’t cowards! We fought ye! 
We showed ye! And you’re payin’ now!” Her 
voice mounted to almost a scream. It drowned the 
words of her husband, cursing at her, begging her 
to be quiet. “I will tell him! I will say what I 
want!” She broke down, whimpering: “But the 
money—the money that was to keep us goin’ for 
another year—is it too late? Is it lost? Can’t we 
get some of it to start buildin’ up agin?” 

Marty swore loudly as the posse gathered reins 
to start. 

“Can’t you do one good deed—the last—and 
let us start agin?” 

The chief, who disliked scenes in which women 





THE ACCUSED 


135 


played emotional leads, shrugged his shoulders 
and clucked to his horse, bidding Drury to follow. 
Drury had listened to every word of the woman’s 
railing. Her vehemence was so cutting that he 
felt a strange sensation, almost inexplicable, com¬ 
ing over him. He felt as if he had actually com¬ 
mitted the crime himself. Such was the directness 
and the power of her accusation. 

“Cheer up, lady!” he called out over his shoul¬ 
der. “Remember that the Gila’s kingdom is 
crumbling. If I have anything to say about it 

you’ll get your money back, even if it’s hidden 
away as far as Mexico.” 

The ranch wife’s companion, an older woman, 
clutched at the reins of Drury’s horse before he 
could turn to follow the chief. 

“He shot at my boy and hurt him!” she cried. 
“He was a big, brave boy, and he fought them. 
He wouldn’t let them touch a poor ole woman like 
me! He fought them, and they hurt him, and he’s 
lyin’ in there, sufferin’.” 

She stared up at Drury, and her eyes, which had 
been bleary and sullen, seemed to slowly clear 
until they were burning coals. “You killer! You 
yellow coyote! You are the one that robbed a poor 




136 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


ole woman of the only thing she’s got! My son! 
If my son dies I’ll come to you and I’ll kill you.” 

“There now, ole mother!” Gaunt remonstrated. 
“Don’t get all wrought up and tremblin’ thataway. 
It ain’t going to buy you nothin’! You’re trem¬ 
blin’ and tearin’ yourself to pieces.” 

He took her arm, which she had raised against 
Drury. In her hand was a revolver. 

“The varmint! God will punish him for what 
he done. If my boy dies God will ‘get’ him. The 
Gila can’t get away from Him—no, ye can’t!” 

“He can’t get away from me, either, Mother 
Holser,” Gaunt said proudly. “We’re goin’ to 
string this here bird up right after we give him a 
trial, and then we’ll round up his gang.” 

“If your boy dies, Mrs. Holser,” Tom Drury 
said, “rest assured he’ll be avenged. The Gila is 
going to pay for these wrongs.” 

The old woman stared into Tom’s face. For a 
long moment she looked, blinking as she faced the 
sun. The fire in her eyes seemed to soften, or else 
to change color to something perhaps warmer, but 
certainly not so piercing and dreadful. She clung 
to the chief’s arm, her hands shaking, partly with 





THE ACCUSED 


137 


palsy, partly with exhaustion. A big tear trickled 
down the furrow of her cheek. 

“We must be ridin’ on, Mrs. Holser,” Gaunt 
said. He turned to Marty and the ranch hands. 
“You men follow us up to Desolation. We’ll want 
you up thar for witnesses. I want all of you, for, 
as I’ve always swore, you cain’t have a trial without 
you have witnesses.” 

The posse hit out for the Desolation trail. A 
short ride, loping and walking, interspersed with 
breathing spaces, brought them well into the foot¬ 
hills. Here it was that they found a road, rocky, 
gutted, overgrown with chaparral and greasewood 
—formerly a trail for prairie schooner, stage 
coach and pony express rider. 

Gaunt and his prisoner led the procession, and 
the troop of Vigilantes followed two by two. Then 
came little Marty Lingo on his calico horse, and 
behind him his ranch hands mounted on stubby 
cow ponies. At the rear, his blood bay fretting 
itself into foam in its desire to break ahead with 
the leader, rode Sugg, calm, smiling, smoking 
wisps of cigarettes without ceasing. 




CHAPTER XIII 


Peter’s messenger 

All that morning Jennie Lee had been waiting for 
news of the man hunt. She understood that her 
grandfather, true to the traditions of the Vigilantes 
for many years past, had kept the maneuvers of 
his posse a secret. But news of the raiding of 
Lingo’s ranch had reached town, and a big mob had 
gathered about the sheriff’s office urging immediate 
and drastic action. 

Jennie waited impatiently in her grandfather’s 
suite, sending out her maid and the Cholo servant 
to get what news they could amid the confusion at 
the city hall and newspaper office. All she was 
able to learn from her servants was the fact that 
Sheriff Martin was appointing some deputies, and 
that a Federal agent of the Indian Commission 
was starting some sort of an investigation. 

Momentarily she expected to hear that her 
grandfather had been shot by some sniper of the 

Gila’s gang. A still more possible eventuality in 

138 


PETER’S MESSENGER 


139 


her mind concerned the man who, she believed, 
was fighting the Gila alone. The whole town had 
forgotten Tom Drury and his vow. 

News leaked out early which Peter Gaunt had 
tried to keep secret. It was received by the people 
of Cattleoe like word of a victorious battle. When 
the Cholo ran up to the suite and breathlessly told 
her story, Jennie Lee thanked God. To her grand¬ 
father the capture of the Gila would mean an im¬ 
measurable victory. 

The Vigilantes Committee—so the citizens of 
Cattleoe were given to understand—had captured 
the Gila asleep near the crest of the desert mesa. 
The chief of the Vigilantes, playing his usual cau¬ 
tious hand, had spirited his catch away into the 
mountains, preferring to deal with him as the 
Vigilantes of the frontier days had dealt with their 
victims. 

Sheriff Martin, who feared a lynching in the 
streets of the city, was glad enough to wash his 
hands of the affair; and most of the citizens took 
his view of the matter. 

Meanwhile Jennie Lee tried to pass insufferable 
hours of waiting. She paced up and down the big 
suite of rooms; then, tiring of this, she went down- 





140 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


stairs to the little fly-infested lobby of the hotel and 
listened to the loungers debating and quarreling 
over every issue the great event afforded. 

She even went out into the street, in the hope of 
meeting some of her grandfather’s old cronies 
with whom she could talk. Peter Gaunt’s chums, 
however, were nowhere in sight. They had all 
joined the man hunt and were at that time high up 
in the mountains on the way to Desolation. Jennie 
returned to her room. 

She dressed herself in her riding habit—som¬ 
brero, gauntlets, flannel shirt, and the maroon-col¬ 
ored velvet skirt. Intuitively she felt that her 
grandfather might need her, and that she would 
ride out to the range, despite any one’s efforts to 
keep her in town. 

Finally came the news which she had vaguely 
sensed. It was the culminating factor which made 
her decide definitely to ride out into the desert, 
but it came in an entirely different form than she 
had expected. A rider blustered into town with a 
personal message for Gaunt’s granddaughter. 
When Clout Gomery entered the well-furnished 
little room which had been arranged to please the 
tastes of Jennie he brought with him a stablelike 




PETER’S MESSENGER 


141 


and not disagreeable odor of leather and horsehide. 

His spurs jingled against a spindle-legged chair 
which, in his hurry to enter the room, he knocked 
over. He took off his huge sombrero, twirling it 
in his hand, and the girl noticed that he had 
stopped downstairs in the buffet for a bracer, as 
well as a washing. 

His hair was brushed—an unusual and not very 
becoming touch to Clout’s heavily lined, beef-red 
face. It was plain to be seen that his mission was 
a difficult one. He had postponed it as long as he 
possibly could. 

“They sent me for to handle a very delicate 
subjeck,” Clout began. “And the news I’m sent 
for to deliver shouldn’t orter be blurted out—like 
the way some men generally talks.” 

“Something has happened to grandpa!” the girl 
cried. 

“No’m! I’ll say, No, urn’am! Definite! He’s 
still alive and ridin’ strong. It’s about this here 
hell bender what busted your hoss a couple days 
ago.” 

“Hell bender! Why do you call him a hell 
bender?” 

“I ain’t figurin’ you’ll believe what I’m agoin’ to 




142 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


tell you. Your granddad told me you wouldn't 
believe it—but he says, ‘Tell her the whole truth. 
Clout, and nothin’ else.’ So here goes-” 

“He’s not hurt—he’s not wounded!” the girl 
interrupted impatiently. 

“Not yet, ma’am. But I reckon he’s in line for 
something of that there nature-” 

“The Gila’s gang—they’ve got him!” 

“No’m. You might as well listen to me while 
I tell you. There ain’t no cause for you-all to get 
alarmed about the discovery which your granddad 
found out last night. And you’ll he glad to know 
what we know and to find that everything has came 
out the way it has. 

“Your granddad told me particular to say to 
you that soon you’ll he ridin’ home agin to the old 
rancho—and to your patio and calf pens and such. 
The place, if I know anything, is goin’ to he right 
peaceful-” 

“I know,” the girl cried impatiently. “The 
Gila’s caught. But what about Tom Drury? You 
say he’s in danger of being hurt—and even though 
the man he went after is caught!” 

“That’s the point, ma’am. The man he went 
after is Mr. Tom Drury himself! The long and 









PETER’S MESSENGER 


143 


the short of it is, ma’am, Tom Drury actually—if 
you’ll believe what I’m sayin’—went after his- 
self ” 

The girl stepped back with a sudden unpleasant 
feeling that Clout Gomery had been drinking too 
much. 

“You see, miss”—Clout found a softer, more 
modulated tone—“the man who gentled your hoss 
was a stranger in town, and-” 

“But I don’t understand,” she interrupted. 
“You say Tom Drury is going to be killed, and 
then you say the man he went after is caught!” 

“The man he went after is Mr. Tom Drury his- 
self. The man that gentled your mustang two 
days ago—he made out he come from a Texas 
ranch. Maybe he did, for all I know. But wher¬ 
ever he come from he was working in double har¬ 
ness with himself. He was his own twin, as you 
might say. He called himself one thing, and he 
was also something else. Tom Drury says to you 
he’ll go out and get the Gila Monster!” Clout 
gave a loud guffaw. “Says hell get him! Did 
he! Well, it’s the slickest joke I ever did hear. 
Tom Drury himself is the Gila!” 

“It’s not true! There’s a terrible mistake! E 







144 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


could tell he was no bandit—no murderer! Why, 
the Gila Monster has killed men by the dozen! 
Tom Drury was a cow-puncher just come to town 
from Texas. Some one’s framed him.” 

“Then he’s framed slicker’n any man I ever 
did see-” 

“Of course it’s a frame-up!” she went on pas¬ 
sionately. “It’s some more of the Gila’s cowardly 
work. Tom Drury has walked straight into a 
trap.” 

“Well, the trap was set pretty clean, if you 
want my opinion. What I seen of the whole 
business don’t leave no doubt.” 

“Is that what the others think?” 

“Sure! They’re goin’ to lynch him. The 
chief’s taken him up to Desolation so’s the authori¬ 
ties around here won’t delay matters. He’s not 
goin’ to wait long before he gives the gunman the 
rope either. All as he wants is to stage a little 
investigation so’s his name as fair and square 
Peter Gaunt won’t be smirched none.” 

“You don’t mean they’re going to hang him— 
without a trial? Granddad wouldn’t stand for 
that. He’ll see that Tom Drury is brought safe to 





PETER’S MESSENGER 


145 


town at least and given into the sheriff’s hands for 
protection.” 

“Lord, ma’am! If the town here heard the Gila 
was being brought in they would turn out with a 
couple barrels of dynamite for to blow him up. 
The chief’s too plumb wise for that. But, on the 
other hand, this necktie party he’s going to stage 
is goin’ to be done plumb legal-like. The chief’s 
set on it, and he wanted for me to acquaint you 
with that fact also, miss.” 

Jennie had not paid attention to Gomery’s last 
remarks. She had knitted her brows gravely. 
Before Clout had finished she came to a definite 
decision. The Cholo and her maid had been wait¬ 
ing during the entire conversation, eagerly drinking 
in the news of their master’s triumph. Jennie 
turned to them. 

“I want my pinto saddled,” she said to the 
Cholo. “Put on the cowboy saddle and a nosebag 
with some oats. Fill two canteens with water.” 
She turned to Gomery, who was waiting with his 
huge mouth open in amazement. “How long will 
it take to get to Desolation, Clout?” 

“Longer than you could hope to ride, ma’am.” 

“Can we make it to Desolation before grand- 




146 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


father gets down to this business he calls an 
investigation?” 

“Maybe I could, ma’am. If you want me to 
take any last word to the two-gun gentleman or to 
your granddad, I reckon I could get there in time. 
You see, when I last saw your granddad it was in 
the desert where the Gila was catched. He give 
me to understand that he was goin’ to stop at 
Lingo’s ranch for to see if everything they said 
about the Gila was straight. 

“Now if you give me a message I could cut 
straight across the plain, trailin’ into the Desola¬ 
tion hills from the Eastern Gap. I ain’t afraid of 
ridin’ through that gap even though the Jackson 
brothers was murdered there. When a woman’s 
concerned I ain’t afeered of nothin’! By doing 
that I could make the journey twice faster than 
they made it.” 

“Do you know the trail?” Jennie asked 
excitedly. 

“Ma’am—I’ve punched up many a drag in that 
gap in my day. And when I say ‘drag,’ I mean 
strays that was rustled off by the Choctaws. Cat¬ 
tlemen never drive their herds through there. In 
fact, I sure wouldn’t make that trip without I was 




PETER’S MESSENGER 


147 


heeled—and heeled with something better than this 
here six-gun of mine. It’s a dangerous place, that 
gap. Lousy with the Gila’s henchmen. I reckon 
they’ll be ridin’ around hoppin’ mad now that their 
master’s took in custody.” 

“What time did grandpa’s posse leave the 

Q55 

mesa r 

“About sunrise this mornin’, ma’am.” 

“And they’ll get to Desolation when?” 

“I should say somewhere’s—well, before noon.” 

“And if the journey were made now from 
here-” 

“I reckon if my cayuse can climb the Eastern 
Bluffs I could get there somewheres around noon 
myself.” 

The Cholo came in at this point and told Jennie 
that her pinto was saddled, ready, and snubbed to 
a trough in front of the hotel. 

“Lord, ma’am, you ain’t-” 

“Clout, you and I are going to ride through the 
Eastern Gap—my pinto can climb, and you and 
I can both handle six-guns.” 

Gomery tried to stammer in his astonishment, 
but he felt the girl’s arm hooked resolutely in his. 
He knew there was no use denying any whim of 








148 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Gaunt’s granddaughter. Gaunt had always given 
her her way, and now she was denied by nobody, 
much less by Clout Gomery, who always swore he 
had a “good holt on the ways of wimmin!” 

“I have a calico pony that can ride up cliffs,” 
said Jennie. “And you’re going to ride him.” 

“Well, ma’am, I reckon if you’ve set your heart 
on riding through the Eastern Gap, it ain’t goin’ 
to do for you-all to go alone. I’m goin’ with you 
to see you get treated right, and I sure will spit 
lead at any one that so much as asks you where 
you’re goin’. But that ain’t nothin’ compared with 
what old Peter Gaunt’s going to do to me when we 
get there—and he finds out I’ve brung you into 
town. Zowie! I’m thinkin’ I’ll just ride to the 
edge of Desolation and then come back home 
peaceful-like!” 

“Clout Gomery, you show me the trail through 
the Eastern Gap,” Jennie replied, “and I’ll be 
satisfied.” 





CHAPTER XIV 


THE EASTERN GAP 

Clout Gomery and Jennie, both riding little 
range-fed pintos, reached the foothills late that 
morning. A long lope over a rising plain of sage, 
a climb up the rocky, dry wash of the gulch, and 
then a slow, zigzagging ride across thickly wooded 
bluffs brought them up into the table land into 
which the Eastern Gap cut. The big gorge opened 
up the mountains as if a giant ax, five miles long, 
had smashed into the crust of the earth, opening a 
gash of raw granite and stratified limestone. 

The scene which lay before Jennie’s eyes was a 
desolate one. No forage had ever grown in that 
windswept, rock-bound pass, and no cattlemen had 
ever driven their herds through to the wild bandit- 
hunted mountains beyond. 

“It looks to me, ma’am, like as if we’d orter 
change our minds,” Gomery advised, despite his 

boasting of a short while before. “I don’t like the 

149 


150 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


looks of that thar gorge. What if our horses got 
spavined—or broke a leg in one of them chuck- 
holes. We couldn’t get out of the canon afore 
dark—and, believe me-” 

“Don’t look on the worst side of it,” rejoined 
Jennie. “Our mounts have been raised up in the 
hills. They know how to climb rocks.” 

“But what if some of the Gila’s gang should 
pop up his dirty head—say, behind us, ma’am?” 

“If they appeared behind us, it would hurry our 
ride. And as long as we keep on riding in the 
same direction, I’m satisfied.” 

“Well, I ain’t. I’m tellin’ you straight, ma’am, 
you’re ridin’ somewheres that angels and honest 
cowmen avoids. Down to Lingo’s outfit, ma’am, 
they steer their herds clear of this here valley— 
like it was Mexico.” 

“I’ll stop when I get to Desolation,” was her 
answer. 

As they jogged on into the deeper recesses of 
the gulch the cliffs behind them shut off the last 
glimpse of the open plain. The scene grew more 
desolate, with its shrubbery of greaseweed and its 
gaunt sprinkling of cholla cactus and cow skulls. 
Although high above them the granite bluffs were 






THE EASTERN GAP 


151 

* -» 

full in the glare of the desert sun, and quivering 
in a blaze of heat, the narrow trail at the bottom 
of the canon was in continual shadow. 

Gomery grew more and more lugubrious. He 
realized now that it was a foolhardy step to accom¬ 
pany her into this canon, a place so barely fre¬ 
quented that brand blotters often used it as a cache 
for their stolen drags. While he was reproaching 
her for her rash act he called her attention to a 
thin wisp of cloud rising from the depths of the 
canon in front of them and purpling the crags 
beyond. 

“There are some riders!” he affirmed. “Per¬ 
haps cattle. If it’s cattle, take my word they are 
stolen cows, and we’ll be meetin’ up with a bunch 
of the Gila’s rustlers.” 

She rode on for a few moments, studying the 
haze of dust. Gomery dropped behind and called 
to her to stop. 

Straight ahead, at a distance of about a mile, 
the trail led between two huge bowlders which all 
but obstructed their path. Indeed, the bowlders 
themselves were so situated as to resemble the posts 
of a gateway. 

“A gang of robbers could hide behind there,” 




152 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Clout called out. “Like as not the Gila always 
keeps a man there as a guard. One man could stop 
a regiment by hiding behind one of them rocks.” 

Jennie drew rein. 

“Is there any other trail to Desolation?” she 
asked, for a brief flash faltering in her determina¬ 
tion. 

“None through this gorge—you can see. The 
walls come down sheer. What I advises to do is to 
go back to the mouth of the gap and trail up the 
hills.” 

“Then when might we be able to get to 
Desolation?” 

“I can’t tell. It would take a couple hours 
longer mebbe. But I ain’t goin’ to risk them 
bowlders, ma’am. I feel like as if I was goin’ to 
be potted from every direction.” 

“A couple of hours would be too late,” she 
said. “As it is now, we might not get to Desola¬ 
tion until after Tom Drury is hanged.” 

“I’ll say agin, ma’am, I ain’t goin’ to pass them 
rocks. I’ve changed my mind about goin’ to Des¬ 
olation with you. Tom Drury can hang—damned 
if I liked his looks, anyway, when I seen him this 
mornin’.” 




THE EASTERN GAP 


153 


“I’ll go alone, then. You’re turning pale, and 
I don’t figure your six-gun will do me much good. 
Better ride home and have a bracer.” 

“Look here, ma’am,” Clout began. “I don’t 
want to let you go ridin’ through there alone. I’m 
nacherly chivalrouslike. But I’m goin’ to stick to 
what I said! I’m goin’ home where they’s a 
sheriff!” 

“I’ll stick to what I said, too,” she replied, 
digging her heels again into the pinto’s flanks. 

Clout watched her as her horse jogged along 
uncertainly, stumbling over the rocks, lagging in 
the sand, shying at the sudden appearance of 
cholla cactus under his very nose. The echo of 
his hoofs grew fainter, until Jennie was lost to 
view in the distant gloom of the canon’s bottom. 

Jennie Lee rode on until she came to the gate 
of bowlders. She drew rein when within a bare 
hundred yards of the opening, and listened. There 
was no sound left now of the echoing of clattering 
hoofs. Even the wind had died, so that it seemed 
that there was not a breath of life or a sound of 
any living thing in that dreary graveyard of rocks, 
sand and cactus. Hesitating did no good, she well 
knew, and to turn and flee down the canon would 




154 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


be a surrender of her entire game. The only 
thing was to press on through the opening and take 
what luck would come. 

As she trotted her horse into the gate, she noticed 
him prance slightly, throw up his head and sniff 
through distended nostrils. 

This she understood too well was a definite sig¬ 
nal that there was some living thing behind the 
rock. A whinny told the rest of the story. 

She reined in abruptly, only in time to draw up 
face to face with two horsemen mounted on little 
ratlike pintos. At the same instant another, who 
was on foot, dropped down from the crest of the 
rocks so that he landed directly behind her. This 
man was a giant negro. 

She looked around at the faces of the three des¬ 
peradoes. They were a shabby crew with big Mex¬ 
ican sombreros, black flannel shirts, leather chaps. 
Their faces were grim, hideous, unshaven, and the 
girl caught a glimpse of all of them smiling, show¬ 
ing teeth, some broken, some yellow with tobacco. 

“Where you-all goin’, lady?” the leader asked. 
He was a little man with high-hunched shoulders 
and foxlike eyes. 




THE EASTERN GAP 


155 


“Up to Desolation.” She mustered a voice which 
trembled and choked. 

“What for are you-all goin’ up to Desolation?” 

“I guess you know.” 

“How do you mean we know? Don’t gag. An¬ 
swer me straight. What for are you-all goin’ up 
to Desolation?” 

The other two closed in, and one of the men 
clutched the reins of her mount. 

“There’s going to be a hanging up there,” she 
stammered. 

“We know that. But why should a little lady 
like you ride all this distance for to see a hanging?” 

“Take your hands off the reins of my horse,” 
she said coolly. 

“I will, like hell! Where do you think you are, 
anyhow, a Jane like you!—cornin’ along up here 
and givin’ us orders! Did you get that, men? 
She tells me to take my hands off’n her reins!” 

The others joined him in a laugh, displaying 
again the tobacco-stained teeth. 

“What’s the hanging to you, miss?” the leader 
asked again, his little fox eyes riveted on her face. 

“It’s a lot to me!” she cried, reassured by the 
angry note of her own voice. 




156 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“She can’t be one of the Vigilantes,” the negro 
remarked. “They ain’t no women servin’ on the 
Vigilantes—none that I ever heard tell of.” 

“Of course I’m not one of the Vigilantes,” she 
snapped out. “Let my horse’s head alone, or the 
Gila will make you answer for everything you 
do.” 

The men exchanged glances. For a moment 
they were at a loss what to say. Finally the leader 
burst out again into a jeer. 

“I reckon the Gila ain’t goin’ to give you much 
help.” 

“He will when the lynch party is broken up!” 
the girl shot back. 

Again the men looked at each other with ques¬ 
tioning glances. What the girl had said upset their 
calculations. 

“We didn’t hear nothin’ about the lynchin’ party 
being busted up,” the leader went on carefully. 
“We heard from a Choctaw who passed by Lingo’s 
ranch this morning that the Vigilantes has got our 
chief and has took him up to Desolation so’s they 
can work a quick hangin’ without the law inter¬ 
ferin’!” 




THE EASTERN GAP 


157 


“Then he is your chief,” the girl said with a 
smile of relief. 

The men saw the smile and some of the worry 
that had fogged their faces cleared away. 

“Look here, lady, who are you?” the fox asked. 

“Don’t you know who I am?” 

“We could make a pretty good guess, bein’ as 
how you say you’re goin’ up to Desolation—and 
ackcherly through this here gap—which ain’t sup¬ 
posed to be no highway for the Vigilantes gang.” 

“I’ll tell you who I am if you tell me what you 
men are doing here.” 

“You know already, lady, that we belong to the 
Gila’s gang. I’m just through tellin’ you that my¬ 
self. We’re of his gang and we’re doin’ his work. 
I’m Drigges—Slinkey Drigges. Might you’ve 
heard of me! Any stranger what comes gallopin’ 
along up this trail generally gets acquainted with 
me. The Gila give me orders to introduce myself. 
But I will say this—he never told me what to do 
in case a woman come—and a woman ridin’ alone 
and on a lathery horse in a hurry to attend his 
hangin’.” 

“If you belong to the Gila’s gang, why are you 
men waiting down here while he’s up in Desolation 





158 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


in the hands of the Vigilantes and on the brink of 
being killed?” 

“Who are you that’s askin’ us these here pointed 
questions, lady?” 

“I’m the Gila’s sweetheart,” she said coolly. 

The negro at the horse’s head let go of the reins 
and stepped back. The others stared for a moment 
incredulously. 

“I’ve heard tell that there’s a gal back there in 
Cattleoe that the Gila’s had a fancy to,” Slinkey 
Drigges said. “But I didn’t reckon that he’d con¬ 
fessed to any woman alive just who he was. Why, 
ma’am, if you’ll believe it, they ain’t a man on this 
here range who knows just who the Gila really is. 
We ain’t never seen him ourselves. That’s why the 
chief’s never been in danger once yet. He’s an all- 
powerful man, lady, and if you’re his sweetheart 
you’re sure goin’ to be the queen of a almighty 
powerful bunch of hell-benders among which you 
can count us three humble blotchers.” 

“You say you have never seen the Gila?” she 
asked guardedly. 

“Never, lady—that is, never so far as we knows. 
Might we’ve seen him—every one’s seen him, but 
they don’t know him when they see him. Why, 






THE EASTERN GAP 


159 


\ 

ma’am, he’s so plumb successful with this here 
game of hide-and-seek of his’n that he can go 
ridin’ into Cattleoe in broad daylight and no one 
pays any attention to him.” 

“Well, I, of course, know him,” she explained 
freely and with a palpable note of relief in her 
voice. “He is a very tall men with a sunburned 
face, and sharp, steady eyes. Now that he is in 
- trouble, of course, every one on the range will 
know him. His game as an incognito king is lost. 
But his game against the Vigilantes is not lost. 
He must be saved. His men must rally around him 
now and fight to the last drop of blood.” 

“Them’s fine sentiments, lady—but-” 

“There’s no ‘but’ about it. If he heard that his 
gang was forsaking him now that he is at last 
caught, what do you think he would do if he ever 
escaped from the Vigilantes and came back?” 

The men sobered at this thought, and oaths of 
dismay and horror answered the girl. “He sure 
would pump us so full of lead that you couldn’t 
lift us without you had a derrick!” little Slinkey 
Drigges remarked. 

“Then why is it you’re here?” she asked point¬ 
edly. 






160 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 

■ t— 11 —— 

Drigges looked around dumbly at his two com¬ 
panions for an answer. 

“Well, if you want to know the truth, lady,” 
he said, “I’ll tell yer. You see, now that he’s 
took by the Vigilantes, his rule has sort of gone 
up in smoke. We don’t know which way to turn, 
so to speak.” 

“Why can’t three of you, armed, do something?” 

“Three of us* ag’in the Vigilantes!” Slinkey 
cried. “What chanct would we have? We heard 
tell thdt they’s over a dozen of the Vigilantes ridin’, 
and they’re all crack men.” 

“Then you’re -afraid?” 

“Sure, we’re afraid. Plumb scairt to death. 
Without our chief we can’t do nothin’. If you 
want me to admit it, ma’am, I’ll say I’m petrified 
with tear.” 

“I ain’t rarin’ to go fighting too much myself,” 
the nigger added. “Can’t do nothin’ now. I ain’t 
goin’ to throw no gun on them Vigilantes. They 
all got fast mounts and clean guns. I’ll agree that 
I’m tremblin’ all over with panic at the thought of 
goin’ up thar to Desolation.” 

“Me, too,” the half-breed Mexican added. “I 





THE EASTERN GAP 


161 


am a brave man, but now my heart is beating 
thump, thump, like dat.” 

“If you men are all afraid of meeting the Vigi¬ 
lantes in a gunfight,” said Jennie, “I have a plan 
by which we can save our master and do it so 
there won’t be any chance of losing. There’ll be 
gun-play, but the Vigilantes will lose. I will ride 
straight into town and tell them I’ve been lost— 
chased by rustlers—anything. With a situation 
like that—one of us working inside of the enemy’s 
lines and the rest outside ready to start scooting 
any minute—we ought to win easily.” 

“But the danger, lady—the odds them Vigilantes 
has on us-” 

, “What will that matter when you consider the 
reward?” 

“I reckon the reward the Gila will slip out to 
us will sure be somethin’ worth considerin’,” 
Drigges admitted. 

“I’ll see that you get your reward,” she urged. 
“Every one of you.” 

“Will you see that it’s enough to last us the 
rest of our lives?” Drigges asked. 

“I’ll promise anything. The Gila will be gen- 

95 


erous. 






162 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“He has that name among us, lady,” Drigges 
agreed. “Them as is on his side he treats proper. 
I will say that.” He turned to the other three. 
“What do you say, men? Will it be worth the 
game?” 

“We’ll follow the gal to Desolation,” the nigger 
replied. “And if her plan looks like we’ll sure 
win, and get a big swag, then Ah’m agreed.” 

“All right, you gents hop to your cayuses,” 
Drigges said. “We’d orter reach Desolation by 
noon if we ride on through the gap.” 

When they were all mounted, they wheeled their 
horses and followed the girl at a smart canter up 
into the remoter fastness of the canon. 




CHAPTER XV 


DESOLATION TOWN 

As Peter Gaunt and his posse climbed higher into 
the mountains they passed from the hot sunlight of 
the foothills into the shadow of the peaks. Before 
reaching the little shelf of land where Desolation 
stood they found themselves in the cool uplands, 
while the plains below still shimmered in the mid¬ 
day heat. 

The little, old, forsaken town was clearly visible 
to Tom Drury as the stage road rounded the shoul¬ 
der of a hill, preparatory to cutting down into 
the main street. The first shack which they passed 
loomed like an eyeless skull, streaked white and 
gray with wind and sand and rain. The center 
street was a silent corridor between rows of shacks, 
abandoned saloons, dance halls, and gambling 
dens. A dreary wind struck up a consistent and 
monotonous song through the rotten old doors. A 
loosened sash banged without rhythm. 

163 


164 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Tom was impressed with the terrific wildness of 
the scene. Deserts cannot be so lonely as a “ghost 
town.” The ancient dens evoked scenes of for¬ 
gotten brawls and murders—their fagades warped 
and unsightly, hideous, untenanted, forgotten— 
graves under the sun. 

Drury pictured the old gamblers, the miners, 
drunk with their wealth, the muckers hurling 
streaks of fire into the street, the croupiers frisking 
cards, and the dance girls pounding away at some 
uproarious jig tune. 

Sandwiched between a dance hall and a shack 
which had once been a barber shop and hot-dog 
stand, there stood a rickety old building with a 
sign which still retained a modicum of its garish 
paint. “Sheriff’s Office” were the half-obliterated 
words. 

Peter Gaunt drew rein before this gray, warped 
building. A flock of reverent memories came to 
him. His father had been sheriff in this town 
fifty years before, and it was in this office that 
judge and jury had gathered and passed judgment 
on Gaunt’s captured outlaws. Justice had been 
dealt them whenever they fell into the older 




DESOLATION TOWN 


165 


Gaunt’s hands. But it had been justice of the 
sternest, most inexorable kind. 

Peter Gaunt, the younger, had now grown to be 
an old man, and he realized that the fame of the 
family name was dwindling rapidly away. And 
it was not dwindling for lack of outlaws to hang. 
There was something heartrending about the real 
truth. During the last five years of Peter Gaunt’s 
life he had seen the name gradually but consist¬ 
ently lose all of its old grandeur. His failure to 
get the Gila was the thing uppermost in men’s 
minds. 

“But now,” he said to himself, “I have got him! 
And I am going to deal with him as my father 
dealt with the long string of outlaws of which this 
Gila is the last.” 

It thus happened that Gaunt had a whim as he 
entered into Desolation—a whim which he grati¬ 
fied. He announced to his posse that he would 
have the trial in the courtroom where his father’s 
criminals had been condemned fifty years before. 

Henry Sugg, nonchalantly rolling a cigarette, 
suggested that a regular trial would delay matters 
and before they knew it the sheriff from Cattleoe 




166 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


would be riding up with a posse to call the whole 
game off. 

“This is a job for the Vigilantes,” little Marty 
Lingo also protested. “And the Vigilantes is sup¬ 
posed to do things quick.” 

“And fair,” Gaunt added conclusively. 

The posse dismounted in front of the sheriff’s 
office, and horses were snubbed at a rotten old 
water trough which to all appearances had been 
dry for half a century. Crater, being by nature an 
unsociable horse, was tied apart. 

“Now we got the town to ourselves,” Gaunt an¬ 
nounced. “There’s no one ever passes through 
here for nothin’—exceptin’ maybe coyotes and 
tarantulas. But just because we’re going to pull 
off a hanging don’t mean that we can’t do it civil¬ 
ized like, as they did in my father’s day.” 

“If you’re plumb set on making this here party 
legal, why not have the trial after the hanging?” 
Marty Lingo suggested. “Then, if the sheriff 
comes along, we could tell him, ‘Sorry, sheriff, but 
the meetin’s over. You’re too late. The Vigilantes 
has done what they promised to do ever since the 
Gila came to the range.’ ” 

“I figure that would be all right,” Gaunt said, 





DESOLATION TOWN 


167 


“exceptin’ in that case you couldn’t have a trial 
by jury. And I’m set on givin’ this here bird a 
trial by jury since he’s swearin’ so hard that he’s 
innocent.” 

“You could call it a coroner’s jury,” Marty con¬ 
tinued, “and the trial we could say was a inquest. 
I figure what this bird needs is a inquest, and not 
a trial.” 

“My dad and his Vigilantes didn’t do things that- 
away,” Gaunt replied. “And this here committee 
is going to be a committee like what my dad headed 
in this very town half a century ago.” 

“We’ll set in on any game you say,” Marty 
finally agreed. “All as you have to do, chief, is 
to name what sort of a pot it’s to be—and we’re 
playin’ according.” 

Henry Sugg, who had been listening expectantly, 
finally laughed. 

“Let him have his trial, chief,” he said. “He’s 
actually accused me of having a hand in his game, 
and I reckon a trial with the exhibits you’ve brought 
along will clear my name even if it doesn’t accom¬ 
plish much else.” 

One of the horsemen was stationed at the trough 





168 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


to watch the mounts in case any renegade was 
hanging about, and the rest of them went in. 

It was a dim, musty room, and the men at first 
stumbled over broken chairs, catching spurs in 
the rotten old boards. The front room of the 
sheriff’s office had been turned into a bar during 
the last days of Desolation—a mute testimony to 
its ultimate degeneracy. Over the bar was the 
cracked mottled mirror, from above which an owl 
gibbered and flopped to the window, zigzagging 
blindly into the sunlight. 

“There ain’t going to be much more time give’ 
to the ceremony, gents, before the countryside 
knows of our doin’s,” Gaunt said, “so I reckon this 
here trial has got to be finished up pronto. Now 
in a regular court you have a presiding judge, 
which will be me.” 

“I reckon that’s all righto, chief,” the mem¬ 
bers assented. 

“It is also important for to see, so that the case 
is presented with all its ins and outs, that we have 
a bird they call the prosecutin’ attorney. Now, 
these here prosecutin’ attorneys in Cattleoe, I’ve 
noticed, figure that in order to earn their salt they 
have to spiel a lot about matters that to me never 




DESOLATION TOWN 


169 


seemed to have much to do with the game that was 
goin’ on. Some of ’em seems to want to shoot in 
a hand of pinochle when the game’s draw-poker. 
Now the attorney we’re going to have this time 
is got to deal his cards fast and fair so’s we can 
hang the prisoner just as the sun’s at noon. We 
don’t want no legal speeches about habeas corpus 
and circumstantial evidence and all that stuff.” 

“Then how are you going to prove me guilty,” 
Tom Drury asked, “if you are objecting to circum¬ 
stantial evidence? That’s all the evidence you’ve 
got.” 

Every one turned to the prisoner, surprised at 
his remark. It struck them as peculiar that the 
Gila should object to the method of his conviction. 

Gaunt did not consider the objection of grave 
importance. He ordered his men to move a broken¬ 
legged table to one end of the room, while he 
placed a box behind. 

“This is where the judge is to set,” he explained. 
“It’s the very table my dad’s prisoners used to 
stand on before it was kicked from under to let 
’em hang. Over in that there chair will set the 
prosecutin’ attorney, which, if it is hereby agreed 
by all, will be Marty Lingo. Marty Lingo has the 




170 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


main grievance ag’in’ the prisoner, bein’ as how 
it was his place as was raided last night.” 

“I agree to that, chief,” the baldheaded little 
cowman said. “But I’m warning you I don’t know 
much about trials and such. Went to one in Cat- 
tleoe concernin’ the water in my creek—but there 
weren’t no prisoner so fur as I remember.” 

“I reckon you’ll be all right, Marty,” Gaunt 
said. “If you ain’t never been to any trials, I 
reckon you’ll punch up your arguments like an 
old cow dog, instead of gettin’ lost in a lot of 
highfalutin Latin.” 

Marty Lingo took his place in the corner of 
the room near a dirty window pane, where some 
big flies began to pester him. 

“We got our prisoner,” Gaunt went on, “so all 
we have to appoint for a regular trial is a attorney 
for the dee-fense. Now, whoever of you bull- 
whackers wants to ack for the dee-fense of this 
crook, I want to tell you this first: you got to pre¬ 
sent the facts of his side of the case slick and 
right speedy. No changing the reins from one 
hand to the other and arguin’ for both sides like 
a man who’s tryin’ to set in a bucking saddle 
and can’t make his mind up. I’ll appoint some 




DESOLATION TOWN 


171 


one, and then he’s got to figure out wunst and 
for all whether he’s arguin’ for this guy or ag’in’ 
him. I don’t want him to start out sayin’ the bird’s 
innocent and then change his mind in the middle 
of the case. It would confuse the jury. The attor¬ 
ney for the dee-fense has got to choose first whether 
his client is guilty or innocent—and then stick 
to it.” 

“I reckon you won’t find any one that’s goin’ to 
shift his arguments much while ridin’ this horse,” 
Marty Lingo remarked. 

“In all fairness to this here prisoner,” Gaunt 
said, “I’m going to appoint as his attorney any 
single one of you gents as thinks he’s innocent. If 
we appoint a attorney for the dee-fense who thinks 
he’s guilty there won’t be no use our wastin’ our 
time stagin’ this trial. Might as well hang him 
and, as Marty suggests, have a inquest instead. 
How about you, Blowfly?” the chief said, turning 
to one of his men. “Will you plead for this hell 
bender?” 

“I sure will plead he’s as plumb guilty as hell!” 

“Then, is there any one else here who’ll handle 
his case for him? Come on, some one of you 
puncher-gents! We want a trial. Got to have a 




172 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


attorney for the dee-fense, and every one as is 
left will be on the jury.” 

He turned from one face to the other, but all he 
could see was the set mouths under the broad, 
lop-brimmed hats and the smiling face of Henry 
Sugg through a thin veil of blue smoke. 

Gaunt turned to Tom Drury. 

“It looks to me, stranger, like as if the jury 
was only going to hear one argument, and that is 
an argument settin’ forth that you look up a tree 
without no hesitatin’.” 

The proceedings were interrupted at this point 
by the entrance of the Vigilante who had been left 
in the street to guard the horses. 

“There’s a rider cornin’ into town, chief!” he 
cried. 

Gaunt jumped to his feet and followed the mem¬ 
bers of his court in a stampede for the door. 

“It’s a cloud of dust,” the guard announced, 
“and a rider lopin’ up at the end of the street.” 

“Don’t get all het up for nothin’, men!” the 
judged ordered. 

“How do we know it ain’t one of the Gila’s gang, 
chief?” 

“I reckon if it’s only one of the Gila’s gang 




DESOLATION TOWN 


173 


we’re too strong to be worryin’!” Gaunt shouted. 
“Nevertheless, the court will adjourn for a ree- 
cess, and maybe this rider cornin’ into town will 
offer to ack as the attorney for the Gila.” 

The newcomer galloped up, and shouts and oaths 
went up from every throat. 

“A woman!” Gaunt cried, choking with amaze¬ 
ment. “Damme if it ain’t my gal!” 

“Jennie Lee! What and the hell!” the men at 
the doorway echoed. 

Tom Drury, who had been crowded away from 
the window, made the humble remark that it was 
customary to let the prisoner choose his own 
attorney. 

The men did not hear him. If they had, they 
would have considered this question nonsensical 
and irrelevant to the last degree. But Tom waited 
patiently for the trial to begin, and he waited with¬ 
out any particular qualms. 

Serious as his position was, he intuitively felt 
that at last a ray of hope had come, as it had 
come to the Merchant of Venice when Portia ar¬ 
rived to confound the Venetian judges and lawyers 
with a woman’s interpretation of the letter of the 
law. 




CHAPTER XVI 


PORTIA 

When Jennie Lee had led her three outlaws 
through the upper end of the gap, the riders fol¬ 
lowed in single fde, each about a furlong apart. 
The girl had wound her way through thickets of 
mesquite and bearbrush, rounding a hill where 
she came precipitously upon the town from the 
northern side. Here she waited until the outlaws 
caught up to her. 

She had arranged her advance so that no dust 
of sufficient quantity to announce the approach was 
raised by the separated horses. She now ordered 
the men to hide themselves in a little barranca 
where the pinon trees and bearbrush would com¬ 
pletely shield their mounts from the view of the 
town. 

From the hill where they stood they commanded 

a good view of the main street. Here Jennie saw 

the saddle horses which had been snubbed to the 

watering trough, and beyond them, scarcely fifty 

174 


PORTIA 


175 


feet, the sheriff’s office. Loafing near the trough 
was a stubby little cowman smoking a brown cig¬ 
arette; on the opposite side of the street was a huge 
gelding, which she immediately recognized as the 
outlaw bucker, Crater. His quivering muscles 
were pestered with flies, his head tossing angrily 
and a forefoot digging a deep groove in the sand. 

Jennie was now able to set forth her plan. 

The three men were to divide and then hide in 
the houses adjacent to the court room. The two 
who were nearest the watering trough were to 
jump the horse guard, loosen the cinches of all 
the mounts, then creep to the window-sill. All 
three were to present themselves at either the win¬ 
dow or the door and hold the gang up. 

“One of the horses is a big black gelding which 
belongs to the Gila,” she explained. “Be sure 
not to meddle with the saddle of that horse. And 
also be sure to save three horses for yourselves, so 
you can ride out of town-” 

“It’s too risky,” Slinkey Drigges objected. 
“Three men can’t hold up a armed posse. They’d 
spit out lead at us like we was cuspidors in a 
hotel lobby.” 

“It’s not only you three men, ' the girl per- 





176 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


suaded. “I am going to be on the inside. I will 
give the Gila a gun. What can they do when the 
Gila himself is on the inside, and three men—for 
all they know, thirty men—on the outside holding 
them up?” 

“What I wants to know,” the giant negro put in, 
“is just how we’re goin’ to get the reward for this 
here game. Looks to me like you-all bein’ our 
leader—and a lady at that—will get everythin’, 
and we won’t get nothin’.” 

“I am looking for no reward except the life of 
the man we are saving,” she said. 

“The Gila will do what’s right by us,” the half- 
breed Mexican affirmed. “Always he does what’s 
right by his henchmen. And this trick which is to 
save his life—hell! The sky itself is no limit to 
what he’ll do for us. I’ll be goin’ to bullfights in 
Mexico City the rest of my days.” 

“I’m thinkin’ before the night’s over we’ll all 
three of us be swingin’ to the gentle zephyrs that 
blows down by Diablo!” was Slinkey Drigges’s 
comment. “That’s the reward I’m expectin’!” 

“Hell, get up your nerve!” the Mexican sneered. 
“We got nothing to do but to lay low. Not a shot 
to fire! Will you look at this senorita going right 





PORTIA 


177 


into the court room itself! That’s what takes 
nerve!” 

“Your part in the game won’t be dangerous,” 
she explained. “The only ticklish place will be 
fighting the horse guard. Even that will be a fight 
of two of you against one—and that one will be 
taken unawares.” 

“But the Vigilantes,” Slinkey objected, “after 
we get through sticking’ em up? We can’t hold 
our guns on ’em all day!” 

“As soon as their prisoner has escaped,” argued 
Jennie, “you will escape, too. Jump on any of the 
saddle horses you pick out for yourselves. Then 
the posse will follow, mount the nags that are left 
and find their saddles slipping around underneath 
the horses’ feet. It won’t be any kind of a fight. 
Everything’s on our side, including the Gila him¬ 
self!” 

This word seemed to reassure them. “Yes, the 
Gila’s with us! It don’t matter much who’s ag’in’ 
us if he’s with us!” 

The vision of a fabulous reward, the sort of 
reward they knew the Gila could easily give them, 
finally persuaded the three outlaws to follow her 
in her daring attack. 





178 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Then there’s no time to lose,” she said. “Take 
a look at your six-guns, get your horses and follow 
me single file. And be sure to hug the side of the 
mountain as we enter the town. Walk your horses 
and avoid the trail where the dust is too dry and 
thick.” 

She led them down toward the main street. 

“I myself will give the cue for you men to stick 
your heads in at the window and door of the 
office,” she said. “And the cue is going to be a 
very definite one. After I slip the Gila his gun 
I’m going to ask one of the men to come out and 
take a look at my horse. I’ll say that my horse 
has the heaves or that it’s coughing. There will 
be two reasons for my taking this method to give 
you the signal: it will make one less man in the 
court room for you to handle, and as the man 
I intend asking to look at my horse will be old 
Peter Gaunt, the leader of the Vigilantes, it will 
make it all the easier for you to surprise the crowd 
•—because you’ll be surprising them when they are 
without their leader.” 

“But how do you reckon you can get the old 
man out?” one of the outlaws asked. “Looks to 
me like you’d have to have a pretty good stand-in 




PORTIA 


179 


with the old gent to get him to look at a hoss when 
he’s figurin’ on staging a hanging.” 

“I think I can manage him!” she said, mounting 
her horse. “Remember the signal. I am to come 
out behind the office with Peter Gaunt. That gets 
him out of the fight. Then you start in the hold¬ 
up. There won’t be any necessity for shooting. 
It’s a clean hold-up. The Gila jumps through the 
window, gets to his horse; you follow. If you 
do any outright murdering in this hold-up, like 
as not the whole country will be up against you 
and you’ll all hang. Bluff is the word.” 

The girl was satisfied that she had arranged the 
fight so that her lover would escape and at the 
same time her grandfather, who was her lover’s 
captor, would be saved from any possible injury. 
With this assurance she wheeled her horse anu 
loped into the town. 

It was just at this time that the trial of Tom 
Drury had been interrupted by the discovery of 
Jennie Lee riding alone into Desolation. 

The three outlaws accordingly skirted the outer 
sheds of the town, keeping themselves constantly 
out of sight of the main street and darting from 
behind one shack to the protection of another. 




180 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


When they were behind the old house which Jennie 
had pointed out to them as the court room, the 
bandits got to their hands and knees and crawled 
into the adjacent house, a dance hall. Here, as 
they tiptoed bit by bit across the rotten floor, they 
could hear the sound of voices coming to them 
from the sheriff’s office next door. Windows at 
the further end of the dance hall looked directly 
upon the main street, where the champing of the 
saddle horses was distinctly audible. Creeping 
ahead as far as they dared toward the front of 
the shack, they paused in the seclusion of a dark 
stall, which had once been a booth in the dance 
hall. From here they could command a good view 
of the street. The saddle horses were plain to be 
seen at the watering trough, switching at flies, paw¬ 
ing at the alkali or nodding sleepily as they waited. 
On the other side of the street was the big black 
gelding which the girl had warned them to leave 
unmolested. 

“When you’ve got the guard out of the way,” 
Slinkey Drigges whispered to his men, “untether 
that horse. The Gila will jump for it, and like as 
not he won’t have no time to be messin’ around 
with the halter rope.” 




PORTIA 


181 


In the middle of the road was the stumpy, bow- 
legged cowman smoking a cigarette and contem¬ 
plating the beauty of the mountain peaks. 

“Jump for him and tie this here zarape round 
his face so’s he can’t holler,” Drigges said. 

“For the sake of our own hides,” the negro re¬ 
joined, “I’m thinkin’ we’ll wait until we have a 
good chance before messin’ in with that thar cow¬ 
boy. He’ll saunter over here after a spell and then 
we can jump him.” 

“Take your time,” Drigges cautioned. “One 
thing you got now is plenty of time. The gal’s just 
cornin’ into town. Even if we waited till they was 
just about to come out into the street for to pro¬ 
ceed with the hanging, it wouldn’t be too late for 
us. Don’t under no conditions start the game until 
some time after the gal’s gone into the court room. 
When you see her go in—then wait a while, watch 
your chance, and swish! with the ole zarape round 
that bird’s head!” 




CHAPTER XVII 


THE DEFENSE 

When Peter Gaunt had overcome his first shock 
of amazement at seeing his granddaughter appear 
unaccompanied in the heart of the mountains, he 
blurted out a volley of questions: “How did you get 
here? Who showed you the way? Why is it your 
horse is not lathered and exhausted from the long 
ride?” and finally, “Why in tarnation did you 
come, anyway?” 

“I came to save an innocent man from lynch¬ 
ing!” she answered coolly. 

“Innocent! We got the Gila who’s been mur¬ 
derin’ every one as has crossed his path for the 
last ten years! We got the man who has drove us 
out’n our house and home—and disgraced me, 
who’s supposed to keep the range clean of bandits! 
And now what do you think you’re goin’ to do com¬ 
ing here at the last minute!” 

‘"Clout Gomery told me you were going to give 
the man a chance and try him.” 



THE DEFENSE 


183 


“We was goin’ to try him. I started a regular 
court like the ones they had in my dad’s day. 
4 Try ’em and hang ’em before the court adjourns!’ 
That was the old slogan in those days and in this 
very town! We started a trial here, but there ain’t 
no one will ack as the attorney for the dee-fense. 
The Gila hasn’t got a argyment in the world that’ll 
save him.” 

“There’s one argument,” she answered. “And 
if no one has offered so far to present that argu¬ 
ment and act as attorney, I will offer to do it my¬ 
self.” 

“We ain’t goin’ to allow no women folk in this 
investigation. It’s a time for the Vigilantes and 
lynching—not for little gals.” 

“At least, I can go in and talk to your prisoner,” 
she begged. 

“Talkin’ ain’t goin’ to buy you or him nothin’!” 

“But I’m going to see the trial.” 

After the chief found that to argue was merely 
to delay the proceedings, he consented to let his 
granddaughter come in with him. 

“First, I want to snub my horse behind the 
shack,” she said. “It looks to me as if he’s suffer- 




184 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


ing from heat-stroke and I want to keep him in the 
shade.” 

The chief went in, and after the men had re* 
sumed their places, Jennie entered. 

When the girl and Tom Drury met, the members 
of the posse realized that a serious complication 
had insinuated itself into the lynching party. The 
prisoner had a strong ally in the person of the 
granddaughter of their chief. Some of the men 
were eager to do without any further argumentation. 
The Gila should hang before any added and per¬ 
haps more serious interruption. But Gaunt was 
determined to carry out a formal investigation as 
he had promised Drury, despite the fact that a new 
crime could be checked up against the Gila’s name: 
the villain had actually worked upon the sym¬ 
pathies of Jenny Lee. 

Jennie took Tom’s hand, and across her face 
there passed a flitting shadow of despair, then 
gentleness, but without a single suggestion of 
doubt: 

“You’re going to be free, remember that,” she 
said. “I don’t care what they’ve trumped up about 
you, you will not hang.” 

“They’ve got what looks like conclusive proof. 




THE DEFENSE 


185 


girl,” Tom replied. “This man calling himself 
Henry Sugg posed as a guide and took me into the 
desert. He rustled my horse, my gun, my som¬ 
brero, and left me on the mesa to die of sunstroke, 
or thirst, or at the hand of his outlaws.” 

“That’s the story we’re goin’ to investigate,” 
Gaunt interrupted. He did not relish the fact that 
his prisoner and his granddaughter seemed inclined 
to delay the proceedings with a heart-to-heart talk. 
“And it’s the all-fired comicalest story I ever did 
hear from a bandit who knows he’s cornered! If 
you ain’t got anything better than that to offer, 
this here trial is going to be a joke.” 

“I’ve got something better to offer,” said Jennie. 

“It’s customary in most courts for the prisoner 
to choose his own attorney,” Drury put in. “If it’s 
all the same to you, I’d like to appoint as my 
counsel this girl.” 

Gaunt replied with oaths and violent choking. 
But some of his posse were too impatient to argue 
such an inconsequential matter. 

“Let him have the lady as his counsel, chief!” 
Lingo offered placatingly. “Anything to get this 
trial over with.” 

“I’m thanking you, Mr. Lingo,” Tom remarked. 




186 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


The “judge” finally gave his consent to wh^at 
appeared to him a most ridiculous breaking of 
precedent. Women lawyers were unknown on the 
range. The most exalted position that any member 
of the sex had ever attained was the schoolmistress 
down at Donkey Creek. The ladies at Cattleoe 
had never risen beyond the estate of waitresses. 

“Since there ain’t no one else will take his case 
for him,” the judge finally consented, “we’ll let 
the gal be one—nominally as you might say—just 
so it’ll never be said that old Peter Gaunt didn’t 
do what was fair by a man who’s down and out.” 

He opened the proceedings by banging his crop 
on the rotten table which had been set up as the 
“bench.” 

“The prisoner will set down on that thar roulette 
table in the middle of the room,” he decreed. “And 
don’t forget to stand up after the jury’s pronounced 
you guilty, so’s I can pass a bona fide judgment 
on ye.” 

Marty Lingo, acting the part of the prosecuting 
attorney, sat on what had once been a rain barrel, 
placed on the other side of the room, and the pris¬ 
oner’s counsel was given a seat on a box next to 
the gaming table. 





THE DEFENSE 


187 


“The rest of you hombres will set up thar on 
the bar, which we’ll call you the jury, bein’ there’s 
about twelve of you. Listen plumb careful to all 
the argyments, then Blowfly thar, who’ll be your 
foreman, will git up at the end of the trial and 
say, ‘Your honor, we find this here prisoner guilty 
of murder in the first degree.’ ” 

“I’ll remember them words, chief,” the foreman 
sang out. 

“Bein’ as we ain’t got a Bible and there ain’t 
no one here that’s ever seen one, the jury will not 
be swore in.” 

The gang of Vigilantes and ranchmen who had 
been designated as the jury accordingly sat in a 
row upon the old bar. At one end was Blowfly 
Jones, the “foreman,” fat, red-faced, stupid. At 
the other end near a door was Henry Sugg. 

" The feelings of Henry Sugg, as he took his place 
on the jury which was to decide whether or not 
the prisoner was guilty, must have been intense to 
an extraordinary degree. He found himself sud¬ 
denly in a position to judge the man who was 
bearing his, Sugg’s, own guilt. 

The momentary and defiant exchange of glances 




188 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


between Sugg and the girl was none the less 
dramatic. 

Sugg’s expression, amused, smiling, sarcastic, 
seemed to say: “Here is your lover; what do you 
think of the heroic Tom Drury now?” Her glance 
seemed to answer: “You are the man, Henry Sugg, 
who should be in Drury’s place!” 

She banished Sugg’s smile from her conscious¬ 
ness and looked around the mock court room. She 
had suddenly found herself in a situation with 
several vital possibilities. It was like a game, as 
Marty expressed it later, in which she held abso¬ 
lutely the highest card in every suit. In the first 
place, she had a power over her old grandfather 
which she used to its utmost limit. It was not the 
only winning card, but it was the safest to play. 
And she resolved to lead off with it. 

Then, again, her absolute faith in the prisoner 
. had given him new hope and a great desire to 
fight, and the loaded six-shooter she was about 
to hand him completed this combination. It alone 
might have started a fight disastrous to the group of 
unsuspecting men perched on the bar. Her last 
card—and the one she resolved to play only in case 
of the direst extremity—was the carefully planned 




THE DEFENSE 


189 


attack from without. Despite the strength of her 
hand, Jennie had a game to play which was more 

complex than any one in that court room under¬ 
stood. 

Her ultimate purpose was to free her lover, 
something which, considering her power, might 
have been simple and sure enough. But complicat¬ 
ing this purpose was the determination that there 
should be no shooting while her grandfather was 
in the room. During the entire argument that fol¬ 
lowed, and the mock trial, the ridiculous travesty 
of justice which was the result of Gaunt’s promise 
to Tom Drury, Jennie was perplexed by this ever¬ 
present conflict: to save her lover, on the one hand; 
to keep her grandfather out of danger, on the 
other. 

Her most ardent hope, therefore, was to win 
over the determined, bigoted “jury” of Vigilantes 
who were eager for a quick hanging. If she could 
do this her next step would have been simple 
enough: she would turn the tables on the three 
bandits whom she had posted outside the court 
room, tell the Vigilantes of their presence, and 
have them captured and bound without any further 
ado. 




190 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


But this ideal outcome to the situation, she real¬ 
ized, was too much to hope for. As the argument 
—ridiculous, one-sided—wore on, the hope of ac¬ 
quitting Tom Drury in the eyes of the Vigilantes 
vanished completely. 

“The first step in a trial of this sort,” the judge 
began, “will be a argyment by the prosecution set- 
tin’ forth in plain cow-country man-talk just how 
and wherefore this here bird is guilty. Bein’ as 
Marty Lingo is the prosecution, we’ll listen to his 
idees on the subject of lynchin’ this bird.” 

“Well, chief,” Marty began, “I ain’t much on 
makin’ speeches, but as I said before, when you 
brought this here prisoner to my ranch, we’d orter 
’low him some sort of investigation. That’s why I 
agreed to your idea, chief, bein’ that we all knows 
you’re a just man and all that. Well, he seen what 
he done to my place. Some of my horses was 
rustled away like as if a gap opened up in the 
ground and swallowed them, like it did the bears 
in the Old Testament-” 

“No legalities! Marty! No legalities!” some 
of the cowmen objected. 

“And we showed this here gent the horse which 
it is well known he busted just a couple days be- 





THE DEFENSE 


191 


fore, out there in Cattleoe, before the whole town. 
You yourself seen that, judge. It was your own 
hoss, and when you say that thar hoss snubbed 
acrost the street is your’n there ain’t no use this 
bird denyin’ it.” 

“That’s a good point, Marty!” a gentleman 
seated on the old mahogany bar avouched. 

“Further and more, gents, I’d like for the pris¬ 
oner to explain just how he happened to be up 
on the mesa on foot, while his hoss was down to 
my outfit gallavantin’ and snortin’ around without 
its rider?” 

“Yes, let him explain that!” said a juryman. 
“Damned if I’ll vote him innocent if he can’t ex¬ 
plain that!” 

Marty cleared his throat and began to warm up 
to his oration. 

“Now, gents, the rest of the facts goes clear 
ag’in’ him. The chief here and all of you Vigi¬ 
lantes was told as how my place was shot up, and 
you come ridin’ out for to get him.” 

“What you said, Marty,” the chief interposed, 
“is straight, and the whole jury, bein’ they was with 
us when this happened, will agree to it and swear 
to it as bein’ the truth.” 





192 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Marty Lingo spat in his big red fist and rubbed 
his palms together preparatory to another speech. 

“Now, the rest of the facts, gents, is well be- 
known to all of you. You find this bird asleep on 
the mesa; then you take him back to my ranch. 
You-all axed what the trouble was; and I said, 
‘Trouble enough,’ as you-all remember, and I told 
as how the Gila had come there with his hench¬ 
men and got my money, which he spirited away 
to the mountains like in the Old Testament Moses 
was took up into Mount Sinai.” 

“Which ain’t got nothin’ to do with the case!” a 
juryman commented disgustedly. 

The judge pounded on his table with his crop, 
restoring order, but setting himself coughing with 
the dust he had beaten up. 

“And durin’ the raid,” Marty Lingo went on, 
“the hell bender lost his hat—which we have here 
and which I am happy to show the jury as Exhibit 
B.” 

“Is the prosecution through with his case?” the 
judged asked, “or do you want to bring up some 
more witnesses and some more exhibits?” 

“It appears we got exhibits enough,” Marty re¬ 
plied. “And as for witnesses, I’ll say that I’m the 




THE DEFENSE 


193 


main witness myself. If you-all want to hear how 
many head of steer I had in my beef herd, and 
which of my ranch hands I had wounded in the 
gun fight this hell bender pulled off. I’ll be glad 
to tell ye.” 

“I reckon it ain’t necessary, and besides we ain’t 
got time,” the judge replied. “The prisoner’s got 
to hang pronto. Like as not some of his gang will 
be around hankerin’ for a fight if we don’t finish 
him before noon.” 

“I’m through with my part of the case, chief,” 
Marty Lingo announced. 

“Does the dee-fense want to do any cross¬ 
questioning?” the judge asked, turning to Tom 
Drury. 

Drury, with an expression which the court 
thought a stoical calmness, turned to his “counsel,” 
Jennie Lee. During the speeches of the prosecution 
she and Tom had exchanged Several bits of con¬ 
versation. In one of these Tom was given to 
understand that in the web-covered space in the 
side of the table which had once served as a drawer 
there was a six-gun loaded in every chamber. 

Tom was also instructed by her to wait until she 
took her grandfather out of the room before he 




194 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


started anything. If he waited until then he would 
have help. 

“You’ve told your side of the story,” the girl 
announced, “and instead of questioning you about 
it, which we all believe and some of you know to 
be the truth, I am going to tell you Tom Drury’s 
side. The gist of what I*m going to tell you is 
this: the Gila is a man who has kept his identity 
secret ever since he came on the range and who 
succeeds in all of his tricks because of that care¬ 
fully guarded secret. 

“Now, just because the Gila has never been 
seen, folks all around the county think he must 
keep himself in hiding somewhere or else go 
about in the dead of night. Did it ever occur to 
any of you that the Gila has been seen, perhaps 
by everybody in the county, perhaps by everybody 
right in the city of Cattleoe itself?” 

“No, it never did, if you want my candid opin¬ 
ion, gal,” the judge remarked. “And remember 
this: when a lawyer gets up startin’ to argufy his 
case, he ain’t supposed to go browsin’ off in some 
corral in Mexico instead of sticking to the point!” 

“Let her get to her story, judge,” a juryman 
pleaded. 




THE DEFENSE 


195 


“The Gila’s power comes in the fact that he 
leads a double life,” she went on. “He commits 
a crime and gets a posse hunting for him off in 
the mountain, while he probably goes to Cattleoe 
and establishes an alibi for himself by playing 
pool with some one in town. That’s only a guess 
on my part. But it fits in with what really did 
happen. The Gila was in Cattleoe when Tom 
Drury broke our outlaw, Crater.” 

“We’ll agree to that, gal,” the judge said. “But 
I don’t see how that’s goin’ to help the hell bender.” 

“The Gila was in Cattleoe,” the girl hurried on 
excitedly. “And he was well known. Tom Drury 
was in Cattleoe, hut he was a stranger from Texas. 
Because he is a stranger, he’s guilty; because the 
Gila was not a stranger, he’s innocent! That’s the 
kind of thing you Vigilantes call justice. 

“The man who committed those crimes was 
clever enough to get a double whom nobody knew. 
And that man was the Gila—not Tom Drury, here, 
but Tom Drury’s guide. He was the man who 
held him up on the mesa, took his gun, his horse, 
and the sombrero which he knew every one would 
recognize. And that man is in this court room now. 




196 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


It is Henry Sugg, sitting there on the jury about 
to condemn his own victim!” 

“You mean that I was his guide?” Sugg laughed. 
“You call me the Gila?” 

“I do!” 

“And that’s the only defense this here crook 
can offer?” Gaunt asked, joining in Sugg’s amused 
chuckle. 

“It is enough!” 

“He is the Gila!” Drury cried desperately. “The 
girl is right! He was my guide!” 

This speech was received by uproarious laughter 
on the part of the judge, the prosecution, and the 
men perched on the mahogany bar. 

“But you didn’t have no guide when you left 

Cattleoe!” one of the Vigilantes pointed out. “You 
was seen riding out of Cattleoe toward Donkey 

Bluffs alone.” 

“I did have a guide. I-” 

“Well, if you want to stick to that story, Mr. 
Gila,” the judge remarked, “you can stick to it. 
But for tarnation sake, accuse some one else besides 
Henry Sugg. We all know Sugg. Your story that 
a guide pulled off all this is nonsense on the face 
of it; but when you cap it all by saying one of the 





THE DEFENSE 


197 


best Vigilantes we got was the guide, you jest get 
us all shaking our sides in breathless laffing! 
You’re a joke! You’re crazy! And if you tell us 
any more anecdotes like that I’ll be laffing so hard 
that I’ll have a attack. Damned if you won’t have 
us all out on the floor rollin’ in fits!” 

Jennie realized that the Vigilantes were deter¬ 
mined to go on with the hanging, and, despite the 
fact that she knew she held the whole situation in 
the palm of her hand, one way of solving the situa¬ 
tion was denied her: the Vigilantes were in no 
frame of mind to believe that the evidence which 
so conclusively pointed to Tom Drury’s guilt was 
all a frame-up by some unknown, legendary trick¬ 
ster who was supposed to have acted as a guide. 

But when Tom insisted that that trickster was 
the highly respected Henry Sugg, Jennie admitted 
to herself that the case was hopeless. Meanwhile 
she noticed the coolness of Tom’s manner—a cool¬ 
ness bred in a fighter who knows a battle is about 
to begin. She knew that he cared nothing now 
for the outcome of the trial itself; he was taking 
the proceedings as a playful charade which was 
laughably insignificant in comparison with the im¬ 
minent and vital thing that was soon to commence. 




198 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Jennie was still eager to bring the Vigilantes 
over to her side, hopeless as the task was. But she 
saw how indomitably they stuck to their original 
conviction, and how futile it would be to show them 
that the Gila had purposely arranged that Tom 
Drury should ride out of Cattleoe alone—in short, 
how hopeless it was to explain a dozen damning 
indications of Tom's guilt. Finally she gave the 
fight up, and played her other hand. 

She estimated that the three outlaws who were 
skulking outside had had plenty of time now to 
gag and bind the stockman who had been guard¬ 
ing the horses. She realized that they had been 
successful. No sound of the tussle had come to 
her, and probably even now they were sneaking 
around by the saddle horses, untying their cinches 
as she had directed. A few moments more and 
they would be near the window. 

When Drury stood up before her as her “wit¬ 
ness,” playing the game like an actor in a comedy, 
caring nothing whether the jury acquitted him or 
not, she knew that her only move from then on was 
to kill time. 

“Just why did you come into the desert?” she 





THE DEFENSE 


199 


asked in a change of voice which caught the atten¬ 
tion of every man in the room. 

“I came into the desert to get the Gila who had 
been terrorizing the country under the very nose 
of the Vigilantes, who had actually driven the 
chief of the Vigilantes from his own ranch and 
had frightened away a girl from the home she had 
loved all her life.” 

“Now look here, you fourflusher!” Gaunt stood 
up, shaking his trembling fist. “That’s the way 
you fooled us at first, snortin’ and buzzin’ around 
like you was a hero helpin’ some one in distress. 
But you got caught and they’s no use your pullin’ 
the same stuff here with the noose around your 
neck!” 

“Then, if you were freed, what would you do?” 
the girl asked, without heeding her grandfather’s 
interruption. 

“I’d go and see that the ranch the girl was 
longing for was opened up again, the fountains 
set to playing, the servants set to baking feasts, 
and the mandolins and guitars to singing.” 

“But with the Gila still running free?” 

“I’d get the Gila and his gang, and I’d get the 
money of this prosecuting attorney back again so 





200 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


that his wife wouldn’t be weeping her eyes out!” 

“Them are big vows,” the judge scoffed. “You 
made a vow in Cattleoe that you’d come out’n here 
and clear the range of its bandits. I reckon you’ll 
clear it all righto by doin’ a tight-rope ack your¬ 
self!” 

“What this man says he will do, I honestly be¬ 
lieve he will do,” cried Jennie. “If you free him 
now and let him go out, he will right these wrongs 
that have been done to us and to Marty Lingo and 
—and to our name.” 

The judge fanned the air irascibly. 

“Marty, get things goin’ agin. Is there any 
cross-questionin’ of this here witness?” 

“I don’t reckon it’s necessary, judge,” Marty 
Lingo replied. “Though there is one question I 
been hankerin’ for to ax him ever since I been 
appointed prosecutin’ attorney, and that is, just 
what in hell has he done with that thar money 
of mine?” 

“I don’t know,” Tom Drury answered. “But 
what I said about righting the wrongs that were 
done in my name, I mean. And I’m thinking I’ll 
get a chance.” 

“Are you thinkin’ the jury will give you a chance 




THE DEFENSE 


201 


to ride the range again?” the judge asked bel¬ 
ligerently. 

“I reckon so,” said Tom. 

“All right, you gents on the jury,” the judge 
said. “Bein’ as how I promised this bird a regu¬ 
lar investigation, and on top of that I’ve even 
give’ him a trial by jury, I reckon I’ll leave you 
bullwhackers give us a verdict. The prisoner has 
had a honest-to-God trial with a prosecutin’ attor¬ 
ney and a dee-fense, both givin’ speeches and 
cross-questions. The next step and the final one 
before the hanging will be to have the jury pro¬ 
nounce him guilty. Now I appointed Blowfly thar 
as your foreman. You gents can tell him what 
your ideas are about this here case. Don’t waste 
too much time argufyin’—less you want to figure 
whether we’d orter hang the prisoner in town or 
up on Mount Diablo.” 

Blowfly scratched his head a moment and then 
asked shamefacedly: 

“What was them words you told me to say at 
the beginning of the trial, chief? Damned if I 
ain’t forgot just how you wanted it put.” 

“Murder in the first degree,” the judge snapped 
out. “And you can recommend hangin’.” 




202 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Wait a minute, Blowfly,” Marty Lingo said 
suddenly. 

Every one turned to look at the little bald- 
headed rancher. The rays of the sun slanted in 
through the web-covered window and showed a 
curious expression in the narrow-set, brown, little 
eyes. 

Marty was staring at the girl, and his expres¬ 
sion was one of revelation and fear. 

“Men, there’s a game been goin’ on here durin’ 
the trial that we’ve been blind to.” 

Jennie’s face paled, but Tom Drury, eager to 
accentuate his coolness, raised his bound hands 
to his face and lit a cigarette. 

The jurymen on the mahogany bar were for a 
moment too puzzled to move or speak. Gaunt him¬ 
self stared at Marty Lingo questioningly, then 
sensing the possibility that they were all about to 
be trapped, jumped to his feet. 

“When that gal come to town I noticed some¬ 
thing, but I didn’t see as how it was important till 
now. She rode all the way from Cattleoe to save 
this here bird, and it appears to me she’d orter 
been ridin’ fast.” 




THE DEFENSE 


203 


“Like as not she was, Marty. What you drivin’ 
at?” 

“When she come ridin’ in, she come in after 
stickin’ around on the outside of the town, prob¬ 
ably postin’ some bandits.” 

“Where do you get that?” the judge cried. 

“Her horse had come in after a good long rest. 
It warn’t even lathered. It appears to me as I 
said: she’d of been ridin’ pretty hard all the way 
from Cattleoe to save this crook. But she hadn’t 
been ridin’ enough to get her horse lathered up!” 

“The horse was heat-struck!” said Jennie 
quickly, trying to modulate the trembling voice. 
“It wouldn’t get wet, no matter how hard I rode; 

I knew I was killing the horse- I—grandpa, 

come out!” she blurted excitedly. “Look at the 
horse- I-” She rushed to her grand¬ 

father, clutching at his arm as Marty’s voice 
drowned her words. 

Sugg saw all these things, and in the confusion 
a light came to him which was slowly revealing 
the actual situation to every man in that room. 
Unobserved, Sugg slid down from his seat on the 
bar and edged his way toward the door. His 







204 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


fingers gravitated slowly toward his holster, but 
before he could draw he caught Drury’s eye. 

Drury’s hands were underneath the table and 
Sugg knew that it was too late to draw. 

While Sugg was estimating just how much of a 
chance he would have in this imminent duel, Marty 
Lingo’s voice was rasping out above the confusion: 

“And I seen you, while you was talkin’ to that 
thar prisoner. You was holdin’ your hand under 
that gamin’ table. Take a look at that table, men! 
Like as not she’s cut his thongs off’n his hands 
and he’s heeled!” 

“Jump to your guns, men!” Gaunt yelled, “and 
out to the street to take a look at your ponies. 
Damned if the place mightn’t be surrounded by 
outlaws.” 

Marty leaped over an intervening chair, rushed 
to the prisoner’s table, and, catching sight of 
Drury’s face, hesitated the fraction of a second. 
He felt that he was a little kitten and Drury a 
huge dog guarding a bone in his kennel. Over¬ 
coming this momentary qualm which blanched his 
face, Marty dived for the table. 

Drury caught him under the chin with his fist, 
whisking out the six-gun with his other hand. 




THE DEFENSE 


205 


Every man snapped to his holster. 

Henry Sugg ducked madly through the door. 
A shot from Drury’s gun splintered the door- 
sashing at his right shoulder. 

What happened to Sugg was not apparent to any 
one in the court room. The negro bandit, who was 
just about to present himself at the door, caught 
Sugg with a blow on the mouth that sent him 
crashing to the wall of the court house, where he 
dropped and lay still. 

The next instant the negro entered. The som¬ 
breros of Slinkey Drigges and the Mexican popped 
up over the sill of the window. 

Drury knew that the chance for his escape had 
come, and he must take the chance now. He 
looked around at the Vigilantes, who had—every 
man of them—obeyed a peremptory snarl from the 
street to hold up hands. 

Jennie rushed to the protection of her grand¬ 
father, who was standing with upraised hands, 
staring dumfounded at the unshaved faces, the 
stained broken teeth and revelatory smiles of 
Slinkey, Andres and the negro. 





CHAPTER XVIII 


THE VERDICT OF JENNIE LEE 

What Tom Drury said to Jennie in that tense 
moment of silence during which the court stood 
immobile, like a group of statues, could be heard 
by every one: 

“I am going to do what I said. The wrongs that 
were laid to my name will be righted. Marty 
Lingo’s wife won’t be weeping to-morrow as I saw 
her weeping down at the Lingo ranch. Your grand¬ 
father’s life wish will be satisfied, and as for you, 
you will see your home again.” 

Drury backed to the window covering the mute, 
frozen figures. 

“Fm stronger than I was before the trial, men,” 
he shouted to them. And the three outlaws heard 
what he said: “You've proved me the Gila. Well 
and good, I am the Gila. And I have the power of 
the Gila behind me—which is power enough to rule 
this range. From now on until I’ve accomplished 

206 



THE VERDICT OF JENNIE LEE 207 


my vow, I am going to rule this range and hold 
sway!” 

He turned and vaulted out of the window over 
the sombreros of the outlaws who were covering 
his escape. Darting across the street, he leapt 
onto the back of the huge gelding. 

Crater reared on his hind feet, swung around, 
and, feeling the spurs raking into his flanks, started 
down the street in his usual series of straightaway 
bucks. When he felt the hand of his master gath¬ 
ering the reins taut, he subsided into a hard gallop, 
and disappeared where the street swerved down 
around the shoulder of the first hill. 

Meanwhile the three outlaws ducked behind 
the wall of the court house, and scurried for the 
ponies they had chosen to use in their escape. On 
the instant every man of the Vigilantes snapped to 
his holster, yanked out the gun, and stampeded for 
the window. 

A cloud of dust, the dim silhouettes of three 
hunched figures and sombreros, and a wild clat¬ 
tering of hoofs, was the target into which they 
hurled a rapid and continual string of fire. 

Those of the Vigilantes who had been quick 
enough to get horses galloped madly down the 




208 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


street. They had barely reached the edge of the 
town when the first of their number dismounted on 
the jump, feeling his saddle slipping around under¬ 
neath the horse’s belly. In another moment two 
more men fell, and the remaining riders, realizing 
that they had been tricked, jumped as their cinches 
began to trail on the ground and their saddles to 
slide. 

For a moment the posse found itself scattered 
along the main street, some standing, some sprawled 
in the dust, others sitting up in the middle of the 
highway gazing blankly in every direction. 

‘'Don’t lose your heads just because you’re 
losing your seats!” Gaunt yelled. “Saddle your 
mounts again and hop to it!” 

As the men obeyed, Gaunt saw the cowboy who 
had been delegated to watch the horses during the 
trial. He was bound and gagged, lying sprawled 
in a doorway. 

“Unbind this damned carcass and give him a 
horse!” Gaunt shouted. “And the rest of you birds 
who had your horses stole—get any mount you 
kin!” 

Now that the chase promised to be a long one, 
the riders looked around for their own mounts. 






THE VERDICT OF JENNIE LEE 209 


The fact that three of the horses had been stolen 
by the outlaws caused the wildest confusion. 
Crater himself—the fastest, the unbeatable—had 
been appropriated by the leading fugitive. On the 
other hand, Sugg’s bay and the calico horse on 
which Drury had been brought to the mountains 
were left as extra horses. These were accordingly 
appropriated by two of the Vigilantes. This left 
only one man in the street who had been too slow 
to grab a mount: he was Marty Lingo. 

Sugg, ever since he had bolted out of the court 
room the moment before the holdup, was nowhere 
to be found. In the confusion Gaunt did not notice 
this, and for that matter no one else did. Gaunt’s 
only thought was that Jennie was remaining behind, 
possibly alone in the town. Before he galloped 
off, leading his horsemen on the chase, Gaunt 
shouted: 

“Look here, men, this won’t do! The gal’s being 
left behind!” 

“Lucky for us!” one of the Vigilantes cried, “or 
else she’d be pulling off another one of her damned 
miracles!” 

“I’ll take care of her, chief,” Marty put in. 
“But my horse is stole.” 





210 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Another man added hurriedly: “Chief, I rode to 
the end of the town before my saddle slipped, and 
I seen three ponies tethered to the side of the hill. 
They’re the ponies the outlaws must have rode up 
here on!” 

The chief turned to Marty Lingo before wheeling 
his horse and bolting down the street: 

“Marty, since you’re without a mount, I want for 
you to look after that there gal of mine,” he 
shouted hoarsely. “Like as not she’ll be pulling 
off some more of her damned tricks. Further and 
more, I don’t want for her to be left alone up here 
in the hills—even if she does think the Gila is in 
love with her.” 

“I’ll see to her, chief!” little Marty Lingo said. 
“Don’t worry. I’ll take her down to my ranch; 
Tain’t far. I’ll see that your little gal is took 
back safe. They won’t no one touch her while 
Marty Lingo’s chaperon!” 

The chief galloped off, leading his posse up to 
the mountains with a thunder of beating hoofs. 

Jennie Lee was standing in the doorway of the 
court room, watching the proceedings of the posse 
with an expression of triumphant amusement. The 
confusion of the last few moments, occasioned by 




THE VERDICT OF JENNIE LEE 211 


the loss of three mounts and the loosened saddles, 
had delayed the chase long enough, she knew, to 
give Tom a big head-start. Added to this, he had 
the fastest horse, and there was a slim chance now 
of his being caught by the men who a moment be¬ 
fore had amused themselves by giving him a mock 
trial. 

Marty Lingo, who was halfway down the street, 
watched the posse stringing out into single file as 
it hit the mountain trail and disappeared into the 
upsloping canons. Then he walked down the 
street toward the girl. 

It was a walk of scarcely fifty yards, and yet 
Marty Lingo was unable to complete it. He saw 
the girl go back into the court room, ostensibly, he 
concluded, to get her sombrero and riding gloves. 
The moment she disappeared, a man stepped out 
of the doorway of the old, rickety, wind-warped 
dance hall adjacent. It was into this building that 
Henry Sugg had fled. 

Marty Lingo did not know it was Sugg who 
stepped out. All he saw was a tall man, masked 
with a red bandanna, holding a black Colt forty- 
five. Marty did not look into the man’s eyes, which 




212 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


he might possibly have recognized. Instead, he 
gazed, hypnotized by the little white line of fire 
which the noonday sun drew along the perfectly 
shined gun metal. 




CHAPTER XIX 


GAUNT STARTS THE CHASE 

Peter Gaunt led the chase as far as the first big 
hill which sloped up to Mount Diablo. Here he 
divided his men, sending half of them about the 
hill to the north, and the other half to the south. 

“On the other side of this hill,” he explained, 
“we can see the canon which cuts up to Diablo. 
At the entrance of the canon we will meet.” 

A mile, galloping through the sagebrush and 
rocks, unmindful of the breakneck chase and its 
danger to either rider or horse, brought the leaders 
around the mountain. Gaunt, old as he was, had 
pressed his horse mercilessly through the rough 
growth, so that its hide as well as the rider’s own 
khaki trousers were badly ripped. The chief ran 
his bright eyes across the wild simmering valley 
which separated the knoll, on which he stood, from 
the towering crags of Diablo. 

He had hoped the view they now commanded 

would give them an easy clew to the direction the 

213 


214 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


fugitives had taken. Instead, they were frustrated 
by a mirage which appeared at the end of the 
canon, so that they seemed to be looking into a 
clear mountain lake on the bosom of which the 
mountain peaks were reflected. 

“It’s the hell of a place!” one of the Vigilantes 
said. “I don’t feel much like diving into that thar 
lake! How do we know now but that the Gila will 
have his gang up and surrounding us?” 

Gaunt did not answer immediately. He was 
waiting for the rest of the posse to gather, as he 
had ordered, and while waiting he was trying to 
formulate a plan. 

“The Gila can avoid them open spaces of adobe,” 
Gaunt heard one of his men saying. “And it’s 
the only place we can see him definite like.” 

“The distance is too fur,” said another Vigi¬ 
lante. “If he rides agin a background of sage 
or mesquite, you simply cain’t follow him.” 

“That’s him now!” another cried. 

Gaunt strained his eyes. It looked to him as if 
the black horse and its rider were a little ant. 
Three other ants were creeping along at the edge 
of the sky-blue water. 

“It appears to me like he’s goin’ one direction 




GAUNT STARTS THE CHASE 215 


and his shadow—which is stronger’n he is— 
damned if it ain’t goin’ the other!” 

By this time the last man of the posse galloped 
up, his horse stumbling and beating upon the stony 
ground. 

“Are we all here?” Gaunt asked, looking around 
at his men. 

“Marty Lingo couldn’t get a hoss,” one of the 
men reminded him. 

“I know that. I told him to take the outlaw’s 
ponies and ride with the gal down to his ranch. 
But is every one else here?” 

The men looked around. 

“Where the hell is Sugg?” Gaunt asked. 

“Yes, where the hell!” others exclaimed. 

“I got his horse!” one of the men laughed. 
“That ought to explain his-” 

“But where was he when we was startin’ out?” 

“As I have a faint recollection durin’ the trial,” 
another man said, “Henry Sugg ducked out’n the 
door just before the Gila stuck us all up.” 

“And two of the bandits popped their noses into 
the door right after,” another explained. “Like as 
not they brained Sugg.” 

“The gal will find him.” 







216 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“And Marty Lingo’s there. They’ll find him.” 

“I’m wonderin’ if he really got brained,” Gaunt 
remarked. “And how is it he run out before any 
of us?” 

“Any one would of run out that had a chance. 
And Sugg was always a quick one.” 

“Well, we cain’t be worryin’ about him, chief. 
Our escaped prisoner is gettin’ farther and farther 
away. How do you want for us to go about this 
here man hunt?” 

“Yes, the man hunt!” Gaunt replied, his face 
lighting up with his plan. “We’ll git back to 
Henry Sugg later. Now I’ll tell you how we-all 
will play this game, men. We’ll deploy here and 
now. Six of you ride north around Diablo, six 
cut straight west, followin’ me. The rest of you 
string out for ten miles acrost the plain. That’ll 
bring us in a big circle and we can start closin’ in. 
We’ll circle Mount Diablo, cover the whole plain, 
and as we close in we’ll stop up both ends of 
this here canon where Drury and his outlaws are 
ridin’! That’ll mean they can’t escape us without 
they try to climb the sides of the canon and come 
right back to Desolation, where they started from. 
If they do that, we’ll follow ’em back, and if we 




GAUNT STARTS THE CHASE 217 


don’t catch ’em by that time, I ain’t fit to lead you 
men agin the rest of my days.” 

Having delivered these orders Gaunt wheeled 
his horse and dashed hack on the trail westward 
as fast as his panting mount would carry him. The 
rest of the riders galloped off on the trails assigned 
to them, some dashing down the long, rocky, mes- 
quite-covered plain, others plunging almost head¬ 
long into the canon, and others beating across the 
rocks in a race to keep up with Gaunt. 




CHAPTER XX 

I 

THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 

As the Vigilantes surmised, Henry Sugg had bolted 
from the court room just before the trial broke up. 
When he found himself outside, he was immedi¬ 
ately confronted by one of his own outlaws who 
was about to hold up the Vigilantes. The giant 
negro into whose arms he practically fell, not 
knowing who he was, timed a smashing blow to his 
jaw. Sugg fell stunned. The hold-up was accom¬ 
plished; Tom Drury had escaped, and the Vigi¬ 
lantes had got to horse. 

When Sugg came to himself, he heard Gaunt 
shouting his orders to the Vigilantes to adjust 
their saddles and mount again for the chase. 

Sugg crawled into the dance-hall adjacent to 

the court room, and from a window he saw that 

old Gaunt was giving his parting orders to Marty 

Lingo to take care of the girl and to ride with her 

to the Lingo ranch. Sugg also heard something 

218 


THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 219 


else; one of the Vigilantes was telling the chief 
that ponies were in the little arroyo at the lower 
end of the town where they had been left by the 
outlaws. 

This outcome pleased Sugg. He realized that, 
with the exception of little old Marty Lingo, he 
was alone in the town with Jennie Lee. 

He tied his bandanna around his face. It was 
when Marty Lingo was coming back to the court 
room, to get Jennie, that Sugg sprang out from 
the dance-hall and confronted him. 

The little rancher’s woeful brown eyes bulged. 
In acting as chaperon to the chief’s granddaughter 
he had not anticipated such a miraculously quick 
opposition. 

He lifted his hands in obeyance to Sugg’s com¬ 
mand, and submitted to being bound without any 
questions whatever. Through his mind ran a con¬ 
fused jumble of ideas: the Gila, as he thought, 
had escaped in the person of Tom Drury. Who 
this man was, he could not guess. He was un¬ 
doubtedly one of the Gila’s gang, but he had 
nothing in common with the three unshaven grin¬ 
ning brutes who had held the court up. The fact 
that he was masked was all the more perplexing. 




220 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Now then, Mr. Lingo,” Sugg said, as he yanked 
off the rancher’s bandanna and used it as a gag, 
“all you have to do is to lie down here in this 
dance-hall, and lie quiet. It won’t be long. Sooner 
or later men will come into town. They’ll untie 
your hands and feet. And then you can blab all 
you please. But don’t tell them who I am. Don’t 
try to think what my voice sounds like. You know 
what happens to men who mess too much into the 
Gila’s business.” 

For a moment Marty Lingo thought that this 
man who talked like Henry Sugg, the suave ranch 
owner and highly respected Vigilante, might pos¬ 
sibly be the Gila Monster himself. 

“But no,” Marty said to himself as the gag cut 
across his lips. “The Gila’s went; he’s up to 
Diablo by this time. He couldn't of come bach!" 

Sugg tied the little man to one of the uprights 
in a booth of the dance-hall, then stepped out into 
the glaring street. 

He removed his bandanna from his face and 
walked to the door of the court room just as Jennie 
was coming out. Seeing him, she stepped back 
with a start, and they met within the threshold. 




THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 221 


“Well, Miss Lee,” he said, “it looks as if we 
had this town to ourselves.” 

Immediately she sensed the mock chivalry of his 
attitude, the amused triumph, the calmness that 
comes with the satisfaction that he had all the time, 
as well as all the power he wanted. 

“Where is Marty Lingo?” she gasped, showing 
by the sudden draining of color from her cheeks 
that she realized the trap in which she had fallen. 

“Marty Lingo is in the dance-hall next door, and 
I’m sure he has no intention of casting a damper 
on our meeting.” 

“Then you’ve-” 

“No, I merely tied him up. You notice he’s 
not screaming? I gagged him.” 

She backed horrified into the room. Sugg fol¬ 
lowed. 

This was the room where scarcely half an hour 
before he had witnessed the almost perfect cul¬ 
mination of his carefully laid plans. If the girl 
had not interfered it would have been the perfect 
culmination. Sugg had reveled at the helplessness 
of his victim, his pleasure had been akin to the 
delight of a boy watching a fly through which he 
had stuck a pin. 





222 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


And in this very room the girl had fought with 
every ounce of her life and energy within her for 
the freedom of her lover. Her fight had suc¬ 
ceeded. The lover was saved; and now, instead, 
she was in his place—as helpless as he had been. 
She had defeated Sugg completely in his first game, 
and now she found herself playing in another one 
just as desperate, perhaps more horribly vital. 
The cards she held this time were not the aces of 
every suit. She held nothing, her antagonist every¬ 
thing. 

“All right, Mr. Sugg,” she finally managed to 
say. “We have the town—as you say—to our¬ 
selves. And what are-” 

“What am I going to do? I am going to pro¬ 
tect you of course—protect you from the Gila 
and his desperate gang.” 

“I am not afraid of them—I have shown you 
that already. I brought the gang up here—three 
of them: that horrible negro, Slinkey Drigges, and 
the Mexican.” 

“But how about the Gila himself?” 

“Do you mean Tom Drury?” A slight spasm 
of anger thrilled her. It helped her voice. 








THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 223 


“I thought you protested Tom Drury was not the 
Gila.” 

“You are the Gila,” she said, her anger ex¬ 
ploding itself and leaving her suddenly trembling 
and unnerved. 

“You don’t really believe Tom Drury’s story.” 

“Of course I believe it. You are the Gila. I 
know it now. There is no doubt of it. You ran 
out of the court room when you knew Tom Drury 
had a gun, because you knew he would kill you. 
You knew perfectly well he would kill you the first 
chance he had—the very moment that he was free. 
But he will come back. If you don’t look out, he 
will come back here. What do you think he would 
do if he found you here with me?” 

Sugg laughed softly. But the thought she sug¬ 
gested caused him to break out suddenly with 
anger: 

“They would have all run out of the court; 
room, every mother’s son of them. But they were 
frozen with fear—and too slow. I was 
quicker-” 

“And more afraid-” 

“This is no time for you to-” 

“Why did you come in here?” she cried sud- 








224 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


denly, finding her nerve. “What are you going to 
do? I don’t want you to ride with me! I want 
Marty-” 

“Not Marty. I am the one you want! I am the 
one who will ride out across the range with you.” 

“The Vigilantes will find us—you do not 
dare -” 

“To ride with you? Protecting you? The Vigi¬ 
lantes won’t find us—not where I intend taking 
you-” 

“You intend—taking me-” she repeated, 

dazed. 

“Down to a very delightful little Spanish ha¬ 
cienda on the other side of the mountains!” Sugg 
smiled graciously, chivalrously. 

Jennie uttered a half choked cry and stepped to 
the door. She checked herself as she saw the Gila 
move, scarcely without taking a step, in the direc¬ 
tion which would obstruct her path. She stood 
still, scarcely breathing. Her fear to step forward 
was much the same as the fear of a man who is 
followed by a big dog and who knows that to break 
into a run would only precipitate an assault. She 
found herself momentarily too terror-stricken to 
move. 








THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 225 


When she faced three of the Gila’s outlaws she 
had been brave. Sugg’s most desperate henchmen, 
when confronting her, had failed to strike fear. 
But now that she faced one man—and that man 
Henry Sugg, who was in love with her—her bravery 
vanished. She breathed heavily for a moment, as 
if trying to drown the almost audible beating of 
her heart. 

Then she collected her wits and spoke in a low 
trembling voice: 

“You are playing a dangerous game. You have 
won your games before because they were played 
against men.” Her voice suddenly steadied itself 
to a cutting softness. “Now you think you will try 
a new sort of game. It’s one that many men have 
lost.” 

“I will not lose,” he replied in a tone so polite 
as to seem almost placating. “I cannot lose. This 
range is mine, the law of it, and the lawlessness of 
it. Your own Vigilantes are with me, your grand¬ 
father.” 

“And your desperadoes?” she snapped. “Your 
desperadoes are with Tom Drury—and as long 
as Tom Drury wishes to remain an outlaw—the 
outlaw you have made him—as long as he desires 





226 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


to remain the leader of your gang, your power is 
gone!” 

“Very well, I will stay away from him. You 
and I will go away together. We will ride from 
the range and over the hills until we come to a 
little abandoned ranch-” 

“ Together ”—she repeated, horrified. “We are 
going together?” 

“To a little ranch on the other side of Diablo,” 
he went on. “You and I. There we will have 
supper to-night and no one in the world will dis¬ 
turb us. No one will be within miles or know 
that we are there. Yes,” he added suddenly. 
“There will be one man, a little old Mexican care¬ 
taker. You remember Domingo—little Domingo 
with the white beard?” 

“Domingo!” the girl cried. “Then you 
mean-” 

“Yes, I mean we are going to your own ranch. 
What could be more romantic? You sent this man 
Tom Drury into the desert to clean the country so 
you could go back to your home. And Tom Drury 
said: T will take her back to the home she is long¬ 
ing for!’ But he is wrong. It is I who will take 






THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 227 


you back, and see your eyes sparkle again at the 
sight of your childhood haunts.” 

“My grandfather kept me from that country 
because the Gila wanted me!” she cried, drawing 
back and putting her hand to her holster. “If you 
think you will take me there I will tell you this: 

I would rather kill you-” 

He leaped forward, pinning her arm to her side. 
With his right arm he reached around her waist, 
gripped her wrist till her hand opened in pain and 
the six-gun clattered to the floor. This accom¬ 
plished, he stepped back again and surveyed her 
complacently. 

Now that the first step in their conflict, a swift 
momentary thing, had taken place, Sugg seemed 
to be much more at ease. He rolled a cigarette 
casually and purred: 

“I am glad that is over with. Our relations* 
from now are bound to be much more amicable.” 

Jennie knew this. It horrified her. She was 
reminded of the futility of any sort of struggle 
by the wrenching pain of her wrist. It felt to her 
as if in that one easy grip Sugg had broken the 
little bones of her hand, and in accomplishing it 





228 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


he had not even allowed more than the semblance 
of a struggle. She stood before him, helpless. 

The flies buzzed. Sugg’s cigarette smoke rose 
in a single string toward the cob-webbed rafters. 

“I heard your grandfather say that you were to 
ride home with Marty Lingo. Marty was to ride 
on one of the ponies my own men left up in the 
arroyo. Your pony and one of these will be our 
mounts. I think before nightfall we should arrive 
at your rancho. After that we will ride on together, 
across the border to Mexico!” 

“The Vigilantes will find you. Tom Drury will 
find you!” she exclaimed desperately. “They will 
kill you for this.” 

“During our party,” he replied softly, “we will 
let Tom and the Vigilantes chase each other into 
the mountains!” 

“I will not go. I will die first.” 

He stepped closer to her, looking into her face 
with a steady, serious smile. Again she felt the 
hand on her wrist, and a shudder of helplessness 
went through her. 

“I am not going to tie your hands,” he said, 
“and carry you off like a brigand kidnaping a 




THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 229 


child. The journey is too long. I prefer remain¬ 
ing here.” 

“Here!” 

“We have the town to ourselves. I doubt if Tom 
Drury would return. At least not until Peter Gaunt 
has given up the chase.” 

“No! No! I cannot remain here. The place is 
abhorrent to me. It is like a graveyard!” She 
was suddenly panic-stricken at the thought of stay¬ 
ing another moment in the desolate ghost town. To 
he alone with Sugg in this town seemed to her in¬ 
finitely more terrible than to be thrown with him 
on a desert island or into the heart of an unin¬ 
habited mountain range. The walls of the shack, 
echoing their words, the broad empty street, the 
skull-like houses with their black eyes, horrified 
her. “No, no! Don’t hind my hands!” she re¬ 
peated piteously. “I will go away from here— 
anywhere! Take me away from this horrible 
place!” 

“Your own rancho, then.” 

She opened her mouth to again cry out in pro¬ 
test, but a faint ray of hope came to her. As Sugg 
himself had said, there would be one other person 
at the ranch. Old Domingo, a servant who had 





230 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


been in the household of Peter Gaunt in the days 
before the exile, would see the plight of the girl 
who as a child had been his mistress. At least it 
was better to play for time, to follow her captor, 
who wanted to take her from this place which had 
grown so abhorrent, to follow him to the scenes of 
her childhood. They at any rate could not be 
abhorrent! 

Suddenly she thought, with a pounding thrill in 
her heart—Tom Drury was free and riding Crater. 
He might by some miracle hear of the abduction. 

“Take your hand away,” she said. “I will ride 
away from here with you without resisting.” 

Marty Lingo had found himself so effectually 
gagged and bound that during the whole conversa¬ 
tion between Sugg and Jennie he was helpless. 
He was, however, able to take one step toward his 
liberation. His hands had been tied so securely 
with a rawhide romal that he could not even at¬ 
tempt to twist them loose without cutting the flesh 
of his wrists. Sugg was an adept at this work, but 
he had overlooked one thing: the two-by-four up¬ 
right to which he had tied the end of the romal, 
was so old and rotten that with a few jerks Marty 




THE GILA INTRODUCES HIMSELF 231 


pried it loose. This did little toward helping his 
escape. If anything he was worse off than ever, 
and the big upright fell upon his back, twisting his 
wrists like some medieval rack, so that he fell 
sprawling to the ground. To get out of the door 
carrying this beam was next to impossible, but one 
thing he was able to do. 

Inch by inch he crawled out of his little booth. 
His wrists began to bleed, his gagged breath to 
give out. Yet he was determined at all odds to 
get away from his booth, cross that dance-hall 
floor and crawl to the window which opened out on 
the street. It was a matter, as he knew, of life 
and death. 

When he reached the window the pain left his 
wrists and his back, as if some miracle had been 
performed upon him. He forgot his twisted spine, 
his tom flesh, even his choking breath. He thanked 
God that he had reached the sill of that window in 
time. 

Yes, it was a matter of life and death, and his 
own plight was a miserable puny joke compared 
to the tragedy being enacted with Peter Gaunt’s 
granddaughter as the leading character. Sugg and 
Jennie were at the end of their conflict just as 




232 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Marty, his last ounce of strength going into a con¬ 
vulsive twist, crawled like a wounded worm to the 
edge of the dance floor. 

He raised his head to the sill, and words drifted 
to him: 

“Before nightfall we will arrive at your rancho 
. . . during our party . . . Mexico-” 

The words trailed into the crooning unintelligi¬ 
ble voice of Henry Sugg. But Marty had heard 
enough. 





CHAPTER XXI 


DRURY GUNS FOR THE THREE HEADS 

Early afternoon found Tom Drury in the center 
of the canon where Gaunt had espied him from 
the heights of the mountain. 

As he rode the big gelding down into the long 
stretch of the canon bottom, an exuberance thrilled 
him—the exuberance of unlimited power. The 
hot wet muscles of the horse’s neck, the steady un¬ 
tiring gallop, the tremendous strength of the ani¬ 
mal, enthused Drury, so that he felt as if its 
strength were part of his own body. The sudden 
sense of freedom and the power given into his hand 
converted him from a helpless, doomed man to a 
centaur, a centaur with the cunning of a man and 
the strength of a horse, against whom no one could 
prevail. 

The tremendous, unbeatable mount whose su¬ 
perb muscles Tom could feel against his knees, 

his calves, the palm of his hand, was not the only 

233 


234 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


source of inspiration; nor was that source the six- 
gun which he held in his hand. It was the mem¬ 
ory of something Henry Sugg had told him when 
the two were on the mesa the previous day. 

He had learned of the unlimited power of the 
Gila over this range. Sugg had pointed out that 
it was greater than the power of the Governor of 
the State, as great as the power of some old bar¬ 
baric potentate who could order death according 
to his whims. “Until I conquer these three bandits 
who are following me,” Tom said, “I am going to 
be the Gila!” 

When he was well out on the long falling plain 
of the canon, he drew rein and turned about, look¬ 
ing back on the trail he had followed from Deso¬ 
lation. As he glanced up at the mountains, he saw 
the outlaws who had helped him in his escape. 

They were plunging down the trail as fast as 
their horses would carry them, trying to lessen the 
distance which had gradually been growing be¬ 
tween themselves and the man they supposed was 
their master. 

Drury did not turn to give them his dust again. 
Part of his job, he knew, was to get these three 
men; and now was his chance. He also knew that 





DRURY GUNS FOR THE THREE HEADS 235 


he had little time to waste on them. Peter Gaunt 
and his posse were hot on his trail, and Drury had 
no desire to fall again into their clutches—at least 
not until they were convinced of the duplicity of 
Henry Sugg. 

The foremost of the outlaws, Drury observed, 
was well in advance of the other two. The negro 
followed him at a considerable distance, and then 
came the little hunched figure of Slinkey Drigges. 
It was the Mexican’s horse that had eaten up the 
distance between Drury and his followers. The 
Mexican, Andres, rode up. When he saw Drury 
waiting in the creek bed he slowed to a canter and 
at a distance of twenty feet drew rein. 

“All right, you hombre!” Drury shouted. 
“Come over here.” 

The Mexican rode forward cautiously and 
stopped in front of his “master.” For the first 
time Drury looked at the lithe figure and the nar¬ 
row face, so swarthy as to seem almost black. 

“Have you seen me before?” he snapped out. 

Andres straightened up as if a sword had 
pierced his vitals. He detected a strange sound in 
the voice of this man who was supposed to be his 
master. 




236 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Never without your mask, maestro.” 

“But you recognize me as the Gila?” 

“It is not for me to recognize the Gila, maestro.” 

“But you call me maestro? Why the hell do 
you call me maestro and follow me down into this 
canon, if you do not recognize me as the Gila?” 

Andres seemed afraid to answer. It was an 
unbreakable tradition with him that the Gila’s 
identity was supposed to be for all time a secret. 
His name was not to be uttered. To call him the 
Gila to his face would have been sacrilege. 

“Answer me that!” Drury shouted. “Tell me 
who I am, Mex!” 

“I—I do not know, maestro,” Andres stam¬ 
mered. “The people on the range tell me you are 
taken prisoner. I say to myself, ‘Andres, your 
maestro is prisoner. I will go for the rescue of 
my master.’ I say those words to myself. The 
person who tells me this is one very beautiful 
senorita who is sweetheart to you who are my 
maestro. So w T e come for to make rescue.” 

“But who am I? What is my name? Why am 
I your master?” 

“It is not for me to say your name, senor,” the 
half-breed begged in a tone which had all the awe 




DRURY GUNS FOR THE THREE HEADS 237 


and horror of a medieval monk avoiding the devil. 

Drury took his gun from its holster and pressed 
his horse over to the side of the half-breed. 

“Look here, Mr. Mex, you know damn well I 
am not your Gila. You knew it from the very first 
time I opened my mouth. You ought to have 
known it by the way I mount a horse, by my seat 
in the saddle, my neck, my shoulders, my hands. 
And you do know it!” 

The Mexican’s dry, black hand was slowly mov¬ 
ing toward the flap of his holster, and when it had 
come to within three inches of it Drury shot his 
hand out as if delivering a blow in the half-breed’s 
solar plexus. With a quick flip he yanked out the 
six-gun and threw it into the mesquite. 

“Now, then, Mex, I’ve got a little job for you. 
Before your two pals catch up with us I want to 
come to an understanding. You are to ride ahead, 
showing the trail directly to the cache where you 
bandits keep your swag. Those other two hombres 
will follow us, and if they come too close I’m going 
to watch you to see if you exchange any signs. If 
I see you so much as bat your eye at them, I’ll plug 
you. You get my game now, do you?” 

“Yes, senor, but-” 





238 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 






<41 


9? 




‘But what 

“If you are not the Gila, please, senor, who the 
hell— 


99 


“I’m a witch doctor from the Kickapoos,” 
Drury announced. “I have an effigy of the Gila in 
wax. All I have to do is to put pins into this 
effigy and your gang will burn with the torments 
of hell!” 

The half-breed’s eyes bulged so that the dis¬ 
colored whites showed in a terror-stricken stare. 

“Santa Maria! I will lead the way to the mine 
which is our cache, maestro, for you are indeed 
greater than the Gila.” 

Without any more remarks Andres wheeled his 
horse and bolted across the canon. 

Drury followed. Close on his heels, at a dis¬ 
tance of scarcely a furlong, the nigger and Slinkey 
Drigges clattered after in hot pursuit. 

When the warped gallows of the mine shaft 
first came into view Drury knew that a critical 
situation was at hand. If he permitted Andres to 
go into the mine alone there was little chance of 
his again presenting himself. If he followed 
Andres into the cache there was a great risk in- 







DRURY GUNS FOR THE THREE HEADS 239 


volved in leaving the gelding Crater outside at the 
mercy of the two remaining bandits. 

This latter chance, however, was the lesser one, 
for there was as yet no indication that the nigger 
or Slinkey Drigges had any doubt concerning 
Drury’s identity. The dogged manner in which 
they followed him led Drury to think that they still 
regarded him as their master. Andres alone knew 
the truth, and Andres must be kept in sight. 

Accordingly as they rode up to the old rickety 
headframe which marked the shaft’s opening 
Drury dismounted and left Crater snubbed to a 
dry pine bole. With drawn gun he commanded 
the half-breed to precede him through the brush 
toward the mine shaft. 

Both men crawled through the thicket which 
completely covered the waste. They came out 
into the small clearing under the gallows where a 
few boards, partly covered with sand, served as a 
barrier between the jet blackness of the mine and 
the open day. 

The nigger and Drigges galloped up the side of 
the hill. 

The sound of their horses’ hoofs, spattering 
pebbles, could be distinctly heard as Drury was 




240 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


searching the person of the half-breed for a pos¬ 
sible concealed knife or gun. Having satisfied 
himself on this point, he ordered the Mexican to 
precede him into the mine. 

“As long as you feel this cold muzzle against 
the back of your neck, Mr. Mexican, it means that 
you’re to lead the way directly down the chute to 
your cache.” 

“It is for me to light this jack-lantern, maestro,” 
the half-breed begged when they had crawled un¬ 
der the boards into a cavern of pitch darkness. 
“Otherwise maybe I lose footing and fall down 
the shaft, past a half dozen landings, and find 
myself in a thousand pieces down below the sump. 
What good is your six-gun then, senor? It will 
not hurt me!” 

“No, but remember the effigy in wax,” reminded 
Drury. “Dead or alive you will feel the torture 
of it.” 

The Mexican’s hand trembled visibly as he lit 
the wick of the little lantern. Having no desire to 
remain in the foul darkness any longer, Drury felt 
greatly relieved as the interior of the slope filled 
suddenly with the wagging lights and shadows. 

He followed his guide deep into the bowels of 




DRURY GUNS FOR THE THREE HEADS 241 


the earth. As he crept along between the dank old 
walls the darkness closed in behind him. It was 
an audacious move, and one which led to conse¬ 
quences Drury had not bargained for. , 

Out in the open world, which now seemed re¬ 
motely distant and insignificant, Peter Gaunt and 
his posse were closing in on each end of the canon. 
And, what was infinitely more serious, the nigger 
and Slinkey Drigges, who had ridden up to the 
tethered horses of Drury and the Mexican, were 
beginning to suspect and to ask each other illumi¬ 
nating questions. 




CHAPTER XXII 

THE SHAFT 

Slinkey Drigges and his negro companion arrived 
at the collar of the shaft a moment after Drury and 
his guide had entered. They rode up to the waste 
where the gelding was snubbed, and where the 
Mexican’s rangy, sore-backed pinto was standing 
obediently, unhitched, as he had been trained. 

Both men dismounted, peered into the shaft, and 
then turned to each other with quizzical glances. 

“Do you reckon he figures on hiding in this here 
mine?” the negro asked. 

“With the horses out in plain sight?” Slinkey 
Drigges shot back sarcastically. 

“He’s goin’ in to get the swag befo’ the posse 
gits us.” 

“Then I reckon we might as well wait, have a 

smoke, and give our cayuses a breath of air.” 

“I reckon we won’t wait or have a smoke or 

nothin’,” Drigges rejoined with a note in his voice 

242 


THE SHAFT 


243 


which immediately arrested his companion’s at¬ 
tention. 

6 ‘Now, what the hell?” 

“They’s lots of hell, nigger,” Slinkey replied. 
“If you want to know my sentiments on this here 
party, I'll say we got a delicate little operation to 
perform before we go ridin’ any farther away from 
that thar posse. Mr. Nigger, you and I got some 
tall fightin’ to do.” 

“You-all can perfo’m your own operations,” 
the nigger rejoined. “Ah’m takin’ orders from 
the boss-man in thar—and not from you.” 

“Look here, nigger, I want to ask you candid 
like: What do you think of this Gila of oum— 
now that he’s ridin’ without his mask?” 

“I ain’t seen him too close.” 

“When he came flyin’ out of that court room 
up in Desolation and bounded over for his horse, 
didn’t you catch a good look at him?” 

“Not so good as I was prayin’ for. He was flyin’ 
past me too rapid. Didn’t hesitate nowhere near 
long enough for me to paint a po’trait of him.” 

“And nothin’ went through your mind?” 

“What all are you feedin’ me, Mr. Man? 
Nothin’ ever goes through my mind. Besides, my 




244 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


mind was busy figurin’ on how I was to git from 
that thar co’t room door without havin’ the seat of 
my pants singed with some hot lead.” 

“And as you was followin’ this here Gila 
Monster, you didn’t think of nothin’?” 

“I was turnin’ over in my mind somethin’ he 
pulled off. Couldn’t think of it at the time, but 
after it was all ended I began to chew it like a 
cow thinks over her cud. It was when the Gila 
mounted his hoss. It ’peared to me like he pulled 
off somethin’ a little different than he’s in the 
habit of pullin’ off. I was wonderin’ about it, suh. 
Not serious. I ain’t questionin’ nothin’. No— 
suh!” 

“Well, out with it, nigger.” 

“I was give’ to understand that the Gila always 
trained his hosses so’s he could mount ’em from 
the off side. That would prevent men from rustlin’ 
his mounts without gettin’ badly kicked. But it 
looked to me like he mounted that there animule 
from the near side like every one else does.” 

“So you came to the conclusion that-” 

“I didn’t come to no conclusions—no, suh! Ah 
never comes to conclusions. I jess figgered he was 
in a mighty big hurry to git agoin’, so he hopped 





THE SHAFT 


245 


the old hoss from any side which was the most 
convenient, suh.” 

“Look here, nigger,” Slinkey Drigges said im¬ 
patiently. “You’re afraid to say what you know 
damned well. You’re afraid to say that the face 
of this here bird we been trailin’ is redder than 
the face of the Gila. You’d say it might be red¬ 
der because of his long ride in the sun this mornin’, 
or that it was only redder in your imagination and 
all that stuff. That’s what you’d say. You’d be 
afraid to come out with the truth and admit that his 
teeth, his chin, his height, his seat in the saddle 
—everything else that we’ve so much as caught a 
glimpse of to-day—prove that he ain’t the Gila, 
but some one else in the Gila’s shoes, or rather in 
his hat. He’s wearin’ that yellow sombrero the 
real Gila wore last night when leadin’ us on the 
Lingo raid.” 

“Don’t be laffin’ at me, Mr. Man!” the negro re¬ 
joined. “I knew all this long befo’ it hit that little 
lousy skull of yours, suh. I knowed all along we 
was ridin’ a wild goose chase.” 

“And what’s more,” Slinkey Drigges put in, “if 
we stay here and argue, that thar posse will be 




246 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


gallopin’ down on us from both ends of the canon, 
then where’ll we be at?” 

“Hop to the trail, now, that’s what I’m argu- 
fyin’,” the negro protested. “I don’t care who this 
gen’leman is. Hop to it, and let’s go!” 

“And let this fourflusher get all our money?” 
Drigges cried, disgustedly. 

“But how about the Mex? He can protect our 
swag.” 

“Like as not this fourflusher has the Mex under 
his thumb. For all we know he broke him when 
he stopped halfway up the canon and we saw him 
havin’ that conflab. If the Mex is broke, he’s got 
a fat chance fightin’! This is what I figure is 
happenin’ down there right now; the Mex is 
showin’ the fourflusher where the swag is, and 
maybe right now the Mex is gettin’ his throat cut. 
In another moment the crook will come boltin’ out 
of that thar mine smilin’ and still pretendin’ he’s 
the Gila.” 

“Brain him when he comes out,” the negro 
advised. 

“Better than that, plug him.” 

“You plug him. He might be too quick a draw 
for me.” 




THE SHAFT 


247 


“He might be too quick for me myself out here 
in the open,” Drigges reflected. “The safest and 
surest way to play this game is for you to jump on 
his back, pinnin’ his arms so’s he can’t draw; then 
I’ll meet him face to face and finish him.” 

“That’s all right fo’ you, Mistah Man, but-” 

“To make it absolutely safe so’s you can jump 
him without no danger to your own carcass, we’ll 
go inside the mine and hide in the first air passage, 
and then you drop on him just as he passes.” 

“And where do you drop, Mr. Drigges?” 

“In front of him and throw on him.” 

“All right, suh; but when I pins him with my 
arms don’t you-all be out pickin’ flowers.” 

Drury had noticed that same air passage when 
he entered the mine. And, as he followed the 
Mexican down the long gangway, he did not for¬ 
get the fact that the nigger and Slinkey Drigges 
were outside under the gallows of the mine. He 
concluded that they would either wait for him or 
follow him into the shaft. In either case he must 
remember their existence, and be prepared for the 
eventuality that they suspected him. If they sus¬ 
pected him at the very time when he was appro- 





248 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


priating their booty, he realized that there would 
be a finish fight. 

With this danger hovering over him, he followed 
the Mexican as far as the first overhead stope. A 
chute led down to the tunnel in which they were 
walking. Into this cavity the Mexican crawled. 

Drury followed and soon found himself in the 
small, almost airless cave, which was all that re¬ 
mained of a breathing space between the highly 
piled waste and the roof of the stope. Choked 
airways and the suffocating oil lamp made this 
little hole untenable, except for a moment. The 
Mexican showed Drury two black suit cases, which 
he affirmed were filled with the booty of the last 
few raids. 

Returning to the level below, by way of the 
chute, Drury shot off the locks of the suit cases, and 
examined their contents. It was a hodgepodge of 
worthless paper, of bills, old gold watches, and 
several bits of jewelry. These latter specimens 
had probably been hidden, Drury argued, because 
of the danger of trying to dispose of them too soon 
after the robbery. Fifty-dollar bills, he noted, 
were probably a part of the money recently looted 
from the Lingo ranch. 




THE SHAFT 


249 


He had no time to assort this booty. Much of 
it, he knew, was valuable; much of it trash. He 
decided to take both of the little black satchels with 
him, and, accordingly, he ordered the Mexican to 
carry them. They would at least make a sudden 
attack on his part very awkward. 

“We will go back to our mounts, now,” Drury 
ordered. “Your two companions will be waiting 
for us, and, remember, when you see them, do not 
put the suit cases down. Do not speak to them. In 
your mind—you are to understand—I am still the 
Gila.” 

The Mexican led the way again to the end of the 
tunnel. It was when the first little shining aper¬ 
ture of the opening came into view that Drury 
remembered the air passages overhead and the 
chances they afforded for a sudden onslaught. 

An ironical thought came into his mind. The 
hat he was wearing had been used against him as 
an irrefutable argument that he was the man who 
had raided Marty Lingo’s ranch. It would be a 
turn of the tables of the most soul-satisfying jus¬ 
tice to use this very hat as a weapon against the 
Gila’s gang. 

Tom Drury called the Mexican back to him. 




250 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“You take this lantern, Mex, and give me one 
of the suit cases. It occurs to me that I would 
rather have you in the light and remain in the dark 
myself, while we are approaching the end of this 
incline.” The Mexican sullenly obeyed. “And 
furthermore, Mr. Mex, there may be men hiding 
in the air passages above who, in looking directly 
down on me, can see little else but this sombrero 
of mine. If some one else was to have his head 
underneath this sombrero, aside from myself, it 
would take a big load off my mind. So you do me 
that little favor, Mex. And don’t look upward 
while you’re walking. Walk like a soldier—eyes 
front and chin in.” 

“Please, maestro, I will do anything you ask—I 
will kiss your boots, but do not make me wear 
your hat!” 

“Always remember that I’m behind you with this 
six-gun and my trigger-finger all set,” Drury re¬ 
plied. “If you tilt your head upward, you will 
keep on tilting it till it hits the floor of this tunnel.” 

Doggedly the Mexican obeyed. By his cautious 
advance toward the mouth of the tunnel, Drury 
knew that the outlaw had an inkling of the trap 
into which he was walking. 





CHAPTER XXIII 


drury’s return 

The situation had turned in the twinkling of an 
eye. Drury, instead of plunging headlong into 
almost certain disaster, found himself possessed 
of the most important advantage ever desired in 
any sort of a combat. That was the advantage of 
light. x 

The Mexican, whom he was using as his foil, 
walked ahead, carrying the little circle of light 
with him. Drury remained far enough behind to 
be completely concealed in the dark, and yet near 
enough to see every movement the Mexican made. 

Slinkey Drigges and the nigger, on the other 
hand, although in the dark, could only see the top 
of the Mexican’s hat when the latter passed under¬ 
neath the air shaft. Drury had still another ad¬ 
vantage: in following the Mexican into the mine, 
his eyes had dilated to the dark, and he could 
accurately see what was going on; whereas Drigges 

and the nigger, who had just slunk in out of the 

251 


252 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


sunshine, found themselves in confusing darkness. 

While passing under the shaft the Mexican’s 
sensations had so overpowered him as to make 
him seem almost like a sleep-walker. He expected 
to draw fire from above.. He knew that by merely 
tilting his head, or calling, he could warn his 
companions of the trick being played upon them. 
At the same time he expected a bullet from the 
black depths of the tunnel behind him. 

This nightmare of conflicting fears did not last 
long—nor did his punishment. His death was 
swift. It came, not from the hand of Tom Drury, 
hut from little Slinkey Drigges, who bided his time 
and played his game in a way absolutely safe— 
for him. 

Drury saw the streak of pale red light flashing 
from the air shaft, heard the almost deafening 
crack of the gun reverberate through the tunnel, 
and saw Andres, the Mexican, sink to his knees. 

The huge figure of the negro dropped down from 
the shaft opening. He blotted out the light of the 
outside world. At the same time the jack-lantern, 
which had dropped from Andres’s hand, rolled and 
flickered out. 

“It’s the Mex!” the negro shouted, just as 





DRURY’S RETURN 


253 


Slinkey Drigges dropped cautiously down from the 
opening. 

Without waiting to identify the body of the man 
he had killed, Drigges intuitively jumped to the 
conclusion that Drury was behind him in the dark. 
He whirled and emptied his revolver into the 
depths of the tunnel. 

The negro, awakening slowly to the danger of 
his situation, turned panic-stricken and scurried 
toward the light of day. 

Drury could see every move of this game. 
When Slinkey fired in his direction, the shots 
whizzed past, ricocheting against the rocky ground 
of the tunnel and splintering the timbers overhead 
and on both sides. One shot was all Drury needed 
to silence this fire. 

He aimed at the little glinting weapon which 
was belching its sharp streaks of light from 
Slinkey’s hand. Slinkey dropped the gun, 
clutched his arm, and turned, stumbling toward 
the opening of the mine. 

Drury followed, hurdling over the prostrate 
form of the Mexican. He dashed past Slinkey 
Drigges to the tunnel opening. 

The negro had vaulted over the thicket-covered 




254 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


waste and was running for his horse. Drury 
shouted to him to hold up his hands. 

The negro at first disobeyed, thinking that he 
could reach the shelter afforded by the horses. A 
bullet, whistling past his head, changed his mind, 
and he turned, holding up his huge trembling 
paws, pleading: 

“Don’t shoot, Mr. Boss-man. I ain’t done 
nothin’. It was Slinkey fired at yuh, Mr. Boss- 
man! I ain’t done nothin’!” 

“Come hack here. I’ve got some work for you, 
nigger,” Drury commanded. 

The negro advanced, and, after being disarmed, 
followed Drury to the mine opening. 

“Bandage up that bird’s arm,” Drury said, 
“while I take a look at the Mex.” 

The negro obeyed, tearing off a strip of Slinkey’s 
shirt. 

“He’s got us, nigger,” Slinkey said. “But I’ll 
tell you this. My left arm is still good—and I’m 
goin’ to use it the first chance I git.” 

“I ain’t lookin’ for no mo’ arguments,” the 
negro said. “From now on I’m peaceful—until 
this white trash gits bumped off by our chief. 
Wait till the chief hears of this!” 




DRURY’S RETURN 


255 


Drury kept the two men in sight as he walked 
into the darkness of the tunnel. He returned a 
moment later and ordered the negro to help 
Slinkey to a saddle. The black giant picked up 
Drigges and mounted his horse with the ease of a 
man carrying a child. 

Drury regarded the whole episode as a miser¬ 
able little squabble that had little to do with his 
great purpose. The man he was after was Henry 
Sugg. These three henchmen of the Gila were 
scarcely worth the trouble of hanging. 

In fact, now that his fight was over, Drury sud¬ 
denly awoke to the seriousness of the situation in 
which he found himself. In the fight there had 
been shooting. One shot had been fired in the 
open. The sound, reverberating through the 
silent canon, could be heard sharp and clear in the 
thin mountain air for miles. It was that shot 
which gave Peter Gaunt and his posse the clew by 
which they ultimately trailed their fugitive. 

Drury looked at the southern end of the canon 
and saw a small cloud of dust slowly moving 
toward him. To the north, at the opposite end, 
was another cloud coming steadily downward. 

It was plain to be seen that Peter Gaunt had 




256 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


cast his net with skill. At the lower end of the 
canon a string of riders, presently visible, com¬ 
pletely blocked an escape. It was also obvious that 
Gaunt had divided his men, and a long ride back 
through the canon to the upper end would undoubt¬ 
edly result in meeting another group. 

While debating with himself which trail would 
now be the safest, Drury thought of the little ghost 
town which had been his starting point. It oc¬ 
curred to him that Jennie Lee would scarcely join 
her grandfather’s posse in its hunt. This being 
the case, Tom wondered what Jennie Lee would do. 
Would her grandfather leave her there alone? 
Would Henry Sugg follow with the posse, or would 
he take this first chance he had ever had to carry 
olf Jennie? Would the girl be safe in riding back 
to the city of Cattleoe, or to the ranch of Marty 
Lingo, alone? 

These thoughts beset Tom as he frantically tried 
to arrive at a definite decision regarding his flight. 
The only way he could satisfy himself about 
Jennie’s safety was actually to return to the town 
from which he had escaped. Furthermore, the 
only move that Gaunt had left him was to cut up 
across the little range by mounting the bluffs which 




DRURY’S RETURN 


257 


formed the eastern side of the canon. The fact 
that he had two prisoners—and both mounted on 
one horse—made this move an absolute necessity. 

“All right, Mr. Nigger,” Drury said. “You 
will lead the way up those bluffs, and if you don’t 
want the Vigilantes to catch us and shoot us on 
sight I advise you to pick out a fast trail.” 

A canter along the gradual rise at the base of 
the canon’s side, through patches of black sage 
and bearbrush, brought the fugitives to a series 
of steps. The horses then scrambled up a trail of 
lava, overlain by broken rock and volcanic cinders. 
This led to a dizzy ledge where the crags of sandy 
shales fell off to the gulch below in an almost hori¬ 
zontal wall of brilliantly colored, rain-painted 
rocks. 

The steaming horses pawed their way up a still 
steeper rise of sand until they gained the flat 
ground. A mile’s heavy loping across this divide 
brought them to the eastern slope, where, after 
tearing through big patches of brush, they came 
again within view of the little old ghost town. 

Drury estimated that if he could rid himself of 
his prisoners, without actually giving them up, he 
could escape from the town on Grater, this time 





258 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


without giving the exhausted pursuers a chance to 
capture him. 

He urged on the nigger with oaths and galloped 
at the very heels of the mount which was carrying 
the two prisoners. In another half hour, while his 
pursuers were starting on the difficult trail up the 
side of the canon, he galloped down the apparently 
deserted main street of Desolation. 

When opposite the dance hall he heard the 
muffled sound of a man calling for help. 

He ordered his prisoners to dismount and walk 
before him. Then he entered the old rickety build¬ 
ing, where, as he had expected, he found a man 
bound and gagged. 

He replaced the revolver in his holster, and 
went to Marty Lingo, who had lain helpless in his 
bonds of rawhide romal. When the bandanna 
which had been gagging him was untied he turned 
his face to Drury and gasped, partly in astonish¬ 
ment, and partly from the delight of breathing 
freely again. 

“Well, free my hands, dammit!” Marty cried. 

“Why should I free your hands, Mr. Lingo— 
and let you put up a fight? If I have still another 
enemy to take care of, these two prisoners of mine 




DRURY’S RETURN 


259 


might take it into their heads to start another riot.” 

“Then these men are prisoners?” Marty ex¬ 
claimed, his mournful brown eyes bulging. 

“Take a look at their holsters. You see the 
unbuttoned flaps? You see that fox there with 
the bleeding arm? They are the men who raided 
your ranch, Marty. Their leader is Henry 
Sugg-•” 

“I know it! I know everything. Loosen my 
hands and I will tell you. I’m fighting for you, 
Tom Drury, not for these coyotes. I know the 
whole truth. You are not the Gila, but Tom 
Drury. For God’s sake, free me! This rawhide 
has my wrists nearly sawed off! Dammit, let me 
tell you everything.” 

Drury burst into a laugh and knelt down behind 
the little rancher, cutting the romal until the 
gnarled old hands were free. 

Marty finished the job by freeing his own legs. 

“Drury, you’ve done a good job!” he said when 
he got to his feet. “These men are two of the 
three henchmen who aided the Gila in all his 
dastardly jobs for the last five years.” 

“The third is dead,” Drury announced. “He 





260 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


was bumped off down in the canon while I took 
these two men prisoners.” 

“Then the gang will be cleaned out—if you get 
the Gila himself,” Marty cried. 

“You don’t believe I am the Gila, according to 
those words?” 

“Hell, no! I said I know who you are. You’re 
Tom Drury. And you’ve had the orneriest trick 
played on you that the Gila ever played on any¬ 
body on this here range. Henry Sugg, he’s the 
two-faced, shag-gutted crook, and I know it! I 
believe it! Lookee here, Tom, you and me has 
got a big job on our hands. 

“Peter Gaunt left me here in town for to look 
after his gal, and I no sooner started back for the 
court room to get the gal than Henry Sugg steps 
out and sticks me up. He was masked, but I 
heard his voice later. I heard him talking to-” 

“Where’s the girl now?” Tom cried, suddenly 
sensing the fearful truth. 

“Where is she? You’re askin’ me the right 
question thar, Tom. And I’ll tell you the answer! 
She’s with Sugg! He talked with her in that thar 
room next to this dance hall, and I know there was 
fightin’. I couldn’t hear much, only one other 





DRURY’S RETURN 


261 


thing just before they come out and passed by this 
here window. 

“The damned two-gun man said he was going 
to take her to her grandfather’s rancho. Can you 
beat that? Kidnaping the gal right under the very 
nose of me, Marty Lingo, who was set to be her 
chaperon! I’ll smash the old double-dyed seed- 
wart so’s he ain’t fit for nothin’ but tamale meat! 
Damned if I won’t! Just let me git a horse and 
ride!” 

“You can’t get a horse and ride, Marty,” Drury 
replied hurriedly. “You are going to stay here 
and watch these two men. You can chaperon ’em 
down to your ranch if you want. But you will be 
responsible for them. I am the one who is going 
down to the Gaunt ranch to get the Gila. Now that 
I have a gun, and Crater to carry me, I’m going to 
ride all over hell until I get Sugg face to face.” 

“I got a grievance of my own!” Marty objected. 
“I’m goin’ down there to pot him!” 

The distant clatter of hoofs broke in sharply 
upon the argument. Drury turned partly to the 
window. 

“The Vigilantes are coming into town again!” 
he cried. “Marty, you deliver these men to them. 




262 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Tell his honor the judge where I’ve gone. I have 
no time now to prove to that bunch of boneheads 
that I’m not the Gila. They’ll be wanting to stage 
another trial. Tell his honor that I’ve gone for his 
granddaughter—that I’m going to get her-” 

“And the Gila!” Marty shouted. “The damned 
shag-gutted-” 

But Tom had jumped through the window. 
Vaulting to the back of his horse, he sped to the 
hills just as the Vigilantes galloped down the main 
street of the town. 







CHAPTER XXIV 


JENNIE LEE FINDS HER HOME 

The trail to Peter Gaunt’s ranch led directly into 
the Gila’s territory. The little, stove-in, hook-nosed 
pony Sugg was riding had traveled the trail many 
times before and, now urged on by whipping and 
followed by Jennie Lee’s pinto, it galloped over 
hill and canon, across mesa and dry wash and 
rutted creekbed for a killing afternoon’s ride. 

During the ride a tragedy of a curious emo¬ 
tional sort approached its climax within the heart 
of the captured girl. She had dreamed dreams of 
this little old ranch, picturing it as it had been 
years before during the happy years of her child¬ 
hood. She remembered the red tiles, a brilliant 
and beautiful contrast to the green of fan palms 
and the deep blue of the sky. There was always 
the memory of a tinkling fountain in the patio, the 
pungent smell of the tortillas frying on hot stones, 
the sharp touch of pepperwood mingled with the 

sage of the desert wind. There was the sound of 

263 


264 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


that wind through the branches and always a 
thrumming guitar of Pedro or some other of the 
stable mozos during the siesta. The tragedy was 
this: she was going back now to the real back¬ 
ground of those dreams, helpless, frantic, in the 
depths of despair. 

The wild country which surrounded the old 
hacienda did not tend to mitigate her feeling of 
hopelessness. The long wind-swept plain was 
deserted, shorn of all forage, naked of any reliev¬ 
ing contour except bowlders that grew larger and 
more formidable, cactus more gaunt and hideous. 
And then at sunset came the uplands of the ranch 
where a gently rolling prairie formed what had 
once been the grazing lands of Peter Gaunt’s herds. 

Suddenly came a breath of that heavily laden 
desert wind. The fragrance of the buckeye and 
the purple sage evoked a thousand old memories. 
It was through the sense of smell that she was first 
thrilled—that sense which is more poignant and 
powerful and lasting than any other. Jennie knew 
she was riding home. 

From then until she caught her first glimpse of 
the little tiled buildings she forgot the fact that 
she was in bondage. 





JENNIE LEE FINDS HER HOME 265 


“A stop here for a while so you can see your 
old birthplace,” Sugg said with a soft laugh. 
“And then with fresh mounts we will make for the 
border.” 

In the growing dusk the little cluster of adobe 
houses, the corrals tucked away in a grove of 
Spanish sycamore and madrone trees, all presented 
a picture of serene beauty. The road wound down 
the face of a hill and passed before a small adobe 
wall to that part of the main ranch which the Mexi¬ 
can servants termed the portales. Jennie remem¬ 
bered how once she had climbed along the top of 
that wall hunting for nests of swallows. She had 
fallen; she recalled that her wrist was paining 
now as it had pained then in her mishap. She 
clutched at it where Henry Sugg had twisted it 
that afternoon, and the horror of this home-coming 
came back to her. 

They rode through the portales and the girl 
could see old tiled roofs, not the brilliant red 
against blue sky, but a dull, shabby gray because 
of the darkness. She looked down the long em- 
parrado as her captor ordered her to dismount. 
Many a time she had run up and down that 
veranda under the checkered shade of vines. Now 




266 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


the emparrado seemed strangely shortened and 
the veranda narrow. The vines had been tom by 
the wind and lay strewn dust-covered and gray on 
the flagstone. She looked around dazed at the 
wreck of her dreams. She saw the forsaken fields 
in which her servants had grown melons, squashes 
and Mexican persimmons. They were now like a 
weedy kitchen-yard littered with refuse, a waste of 
charred stubble surrendering to rivulets of sand. 

Sugg watched Jennie standing with the twilight 
still revealing the strange mute tragedy of her face. 
He could not refrain from asking, cruelly: 

“How does the old home strike you now, little 
queen r 

She turned upon him fiercely. 

“You and your men have ruined this place! 
But it will come back to life. Tom Drury will 
crush the Gila Monster that has been crawling over 
this flagstone walk!” 

“But enjoy it as much as you can in its present 
state,” the Gila laughed. “Before morning we 
will be on our way to Mexico. Will your Tom 
Druiy have time enough to restore the place by 
then?” 

“Perhaps!” 




JENNIE LEE FINDS HER HOME 267 


“In that case we will stay just long enough to 
eat a good big meal before the tedious journey. 
We will take old Domingo’s two ponies, which will 
be fresh, and then ride southward. I will buy you 
a hacienda ten times larger than this, tucked away 
in some canon in Sonora or perhaps Lower 
California!” 

“It won’t be more beautiful than this, even as 
it is now in the dusk!” 

The Gila pounded on the big oaken door and 
waited. 

“In a week you will forget this place!” He 
laughed. “You will wipe it from your memory. 
It will never have existed!” 

“I will forget it as it is now, but I will never 
forget it as it was then!” 

The door opened. A little old Mexican with a 
gray steel-like beard held up a jack-lantern, its 
light falling on the faces of the two outside. 

“All righto, Mex!” the Gila shouted. “Open the 
place up for the bride and bridegroom.” 

“Who are you?” the man cried fearfully. 

“It makes no difference who I am. But this is 
the granddaughter of old Peter Gaunt. Light the 




268 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


candles and prepare us a meal. And pronto! We 
are on our way to Mexico for a honeymoon.” 

The old man and Jennie Lee stared at each 
other. A light came into the girl’s face. She 
remembered the caretaker who had transferred his 
allegiance from Gaunt to the outlaw band. It 
seemed to her as if the man had shrunk, shriveled 
up as palpably as a sausage that is burned and 
wrinkled over a fire. 

‘‘Domingo!” she exclaimed incredulously. “If 
it is little old Domingo, you will remember Jennie 
Lee!” 

The old Mexican peered from under his knitted 
white eyebrows. 

“Yes, I remember the maestro’s little girl who 
ran and played in the patio.” 

“Then you will help me. I am in trouble!” 

Sugg interrupted impatiently: 

“You will get us a dinner. Put tamales in the 
fire. Get some of that wine from the cellar.” 

“There is little wine left, senor Domingo 
pleaded. “The Gila has drained the stock. There 
is no Val de Penas left-” 

“But the Juarez wine?” Sugg suggested. “And 
a little of your own mescal.” 





JENNIE LEE FINDS HER HOME 269 


“Who are you, senor, that I should give wine to 
you?” 

“He is the Gila!” Jennie cried. “He has 
brought me here, prisoner.” 

“Do not ask who I am again, Mex,” Sugg 
replied, showing the servant a six-shooter. 

Domingo stared at Sugg’s eyes, the square 
mouth, the gleam of teeth behind the smile. He 
had never seen the Gila unmasked. But now he 
believed what the girl had said. 

“I will get you your supper, maestro /” he cried, 
panic-stricken. “There will be tamales and some 
tarts with wine.” 

He toddled into the dark house, lit a match, 
then candles in an old iron candelabrum. The 
musty room was suffused with a soft pleasant light. 
Old Mission chairs were drawn up before a table. 
The Mexican put some persimmons and tangerines 
in a gourdlike bowl and hobbled away. 

Now that the servant had gone, for the first time 
Jennie felt the utter hopelessness of her situation. 
There was not a soul for twenty miles about—not 
a soul in the world, for all she knew, who could 
guess that she had been brought here. The trem¬ 
bling dog of a servant—her last hope—had 





270 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


revealed himself as one of the Gila’s most abject 
henchmen! 

Sugg clanked across the floor, threw down his 
gloves, ordered the girl to sit beside him, and, 
lighting a cigarette with one of the candles, he 
threw himself into a chair. 

“Now, then, cheer up, little senorita he said, 
smiling through a thin blue mist of smoke. “I 
have fulfilled your most earnest desire—you are 
home. You’ve been wanting to come back here 
ever since you left. So why not join me in a 
merry little party? What more can you ask than 
this?” 

“Nothing,” she answered. “If Domingo takes 
time enough to roast those tamales, I am satisfied.” 

“You are still hoping that Drury will miracu¬ 
lously appear?” 

“Yes.” 

“Even though he is up in the mountains, 
hemmed in by your grandfather’s men, hounded 
by my own gang, lost up there in that jumble of 
volcanoes and mesquite?” 

“I put my faith in Tom Drury at the start—and 
I was right then. This time I am right, too. He 
will come.” 





JENNIE LEE FINDS HER HOME 271 


“And I put my faith in my own strength against 
him at the start. I was right. If he comes, let 
him come. It will be another fight—the Gila 
Monster against a poor gullible boob of a cow- 
puncher. Let him come. I will enjoy my supper 
and wine, and this little homecoming of yours* 
just the same.” 

He stretched out, tipping his chair back com¬ 
fortably and putting his spurred feet upon the old 
oak table. “A delightful homecoming!” He 
began to fill the air with smoke clouds and rings. 

Jennie sat immobile, with the same rigid, white¬ 
faced expectancy. A host of memories passed 
through her brain. For a while she forgot the dim 
candle-lit rooms, the web-smeared rafters, the owl 
hooting at those who had trespassed on his do¬ 
main. She forgot the shrunken appearance of 
everything, from the dried gourd to the wizened 
servant, the narrow corridors, and the voiceless 
fountain in the patio. These things she felt would 
suddenly be touched into life by some miracle, like 
an old castle awakening from a goblin’s spell. 
Fountains would play. She would again hear the 
guitar twang softly at some lively Spanish fan¬ 
dango. Again the sound of laughing servants 




272 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


would drift in from the end of the patio. And 
there would always be that soft dull lowing of the 
herd, the mooing of cows separated from their 
young in the calf-pens, and that sound beloved of 
all ranch-people—the vaqueros singing to ward off 
herd-madness. Then always as a constant obbligato 
to the noises of a big ranch, there would be the 
thud of hoofs on soft earth, the shouting of cow¬ 
boys in their steer-roping and bronc-busting, and 
the ever-present, ever-merry jingle of spurs. 

In those few moments of waiting, while old 
Domingo was gone for the jugs of Juarez, Jennie’s 
imagination carried her completely away. She 
was certain that part of what she had thought was 
coming true. The sound of the wind in the pep- 
perwood was the same as of old. It fitted in with 
her picture, and there was the jingle of spurs. 

Henry Sugg took his feet from the table. He 
stood up and bawled out to the servant, bidding 
him with an oath to hurry about his business. 
Jennie jumped to her feet, shocked at the terrific 
crack of Sugg’s whip on the dusty table. Sugg 
was looking at her. She stared back at his face 
and saw his smile fade, leaving only the surprised 
stare of a beast. She awoke from her fantasy to 





JENNIE LEE FINDS HER HOME 273 


find that one thing she had conjured up in her 
brain was a triumphant glorious truth. 

It was the sound of horses’ hoofs beating into her 
consciousness, slowly, like a sound in the morning 
when one awakens, a sound mingled with the 
waking dream. 




CHAPTER XXV 


PETER GAUNT SEES RED 

When old Peter Gaunt led his posse up the side 
of the canon after having successfully closed in on 
both sides of the escaped prisoner, he was con¬ 
siderably puzzled over the turn of affairs. 

Why shots had been fired by Tom Drury and 
the outlaws, and why they had climbed the canon 
walls in the direction of Desolation, was a ques¬ 
tion the chief could not for the life of him solve. 
When he galloped into the main street of the ghost 
town, the answer to the riddle was more obscure 
than ever. He had seen from the vantage point 
of an adjacent hill that Drury had entered Desola¬ 
tion in company with two of his outlaws, one of 
whom for some reason or other had lost his horse. 

The posse tore madly down the street in a 
smothering column of dust. It had barely reached 
the dance hall when Marty Lingo yelled. 

Despite his hoarse screams the riders were too 

anxious to press their chase after Drury, who was 

274 


PETER GAUNT SEES RED 


275 


now galloping out of the lower end of the town 
alone. Marty had no desire to be left in Desola¬ 
tion with the two captured bandits. His one expe¬ 
rience at the hand of Henry Sugg, who had but a 
short while before bound and gagged him, had 
given the little old man’s nerves a good racking. 
And now he did not relish the handling of these 
desperate criminals, particularly with night com¬ 
ing on before he could take them down to the 
plains to his ranch. To be sure, one was wounded, 
but the giant negro was not a pleasant proposition 
to deal with, even alone. 

Marty yelled at the top of his lungs. He leaned 
out of the dance hall window, frantically waving 
his arms. 

Gaunt saw Marty with a drawn six-gun. He 
recalled the fact that he had delegated him to 
chaperon Jennie; he shouted to his men to ride on 
and continue the chase for Crater and the fugitive 
as far as their mounts would carry them. Mean¬ 
while, in company with half a dozen of the riders 
who had lagged behind, he rode back to the dance 
hall to find out the cause of Lingo’s panic. 

“What’s the matter, Marty?” Gaunt asked. 




276 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“And where’s my gal? There ain’t nothin’ hap¬ 
pened to her?” 

“You just come in here, chief, I got something 
to show you which it will open your eyes till they 
hang out’n your haid!” 

Gaunt dismounted and entered the pavilion. 

“What and the hell!” he gasped. 

“That’s what I said, chief, when I seen ’em 
first. Chief, I want for you to get something 
straight—we ain’t got time to argufy and I cain’t 
be showin’ you proofs—but that thar Tom Drury 
you’re goosechasin’ is a innocent man. It’s 
damned lucky for the whole crowd of us that we 
didn’t rope him up and then ax his pardon after! 
Chief, the guy you’re wanting is Henry Sugg.” 

“How come these coyotes to attend a dance in 
this here hall?” Gaunt interrupted. “And who 
throwed a gun on that thar greaser lyin’ on the 
floor with his arm wound up?” 

“They was invited to this here dance hall by 
Mr. Tom Drury, chief, and let me tell you he sure 
did make ’em dance! They’re two-thirds of the 
Gila’s gang—the other third is lyin’ daid down in 
the canon somewheres and-” 





PETER GAUNT SEES RED 


277 


“But my little Jennie Lee! Has she gone gal¬ 
livantin’ along with that thar two-gun man?” 

“Now keep your shirt on, chief, while I explain 
everything: the girl’s went—and with her went 
Henry Sugg! Henry Sugg, chief, is the Gila— 
don’t laugh! I’m speakin’ the honest-to-God truth. 
He bolted out’n the co’t room as soon as he seen 
that Drury held a high card and was goin’ to play 
it. And he hid, chief, while you went shaggin’ 
after Drury, and when I came back for to get the 
gal here in the co’t room, this son-of-a-goat, Sugg, 
sticks me up. And masked he was! Damned 
skunk! He gags me, binds me, and then goes in 
and says to the gal, ‘Howdy! We got the town to 
ourself,’ says he, ‘and wouldn’t you like for me to 
take you home to your rancho which is in the cen¬ 
ter of my little kingdom,’ says he, ‘and he my 
queen, and then we’ll shag over to Mexico?’ ” 

Peter Gaunt’s face, which seemed burned to an 
indelible scarlet by the sun and wind, the veins 
standing out black and purple like twisted wires, 
suddenly turned as colorless as a graven image. 
“Kidnaped my gal, did he? Kidnaped my little 

Jennie Lee—the damned-” 

The old man exploded into a roar of oaths 





97Q 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


which made the two bandits slink back trembling 
against the side of the dance floor. 

Gaunt rushed out to his horse and screamed to 
his men to follow him. 

“Dammit, chief! Wait till I tell you—Tom 
Drury’s went after him!” 

Gaunt had vaulted to his horse and sat for a 
moment completely breathless. The words of little 
Marty Lingo made a profound impression on him. 

“Tom Drury knows!” 

“Damned right he knows! When he come ridin’ 
into town with these two blotchers, I told him 
everything, and he untied me and freed me. He 
knows, judge! And he’s gone after the skunk, 
ridin’ that thar Crater like hell-fire!” 

“What horses did Sugg and the gal have?” 
Gaunt asked excitedly. 

“I'm thinkin’ they must have taken the gal’s 
own hoss and one of the old nags which these here 
coyotes had tethered in the brush. It’s all the 
horses that was around here then. Tom’s got 
Crater. He can catch ’em easy.” 

“Yes, he will catch them!” Gaunt shouted, a 
note of triumph replacing the desperation in his 
voice. “But we’ve got to ride after him like hell! 


i 




PETER GAUNT SEES RED 


279 


Drury don’t know the way, and if Sugg’s the Gila 
he knows the way only too damned well.” 

“But Drury’s got Crater. He’ll ask the way as 
he rides along. Like as not the gal’s safe,” one 
of the Vigilantes put in. 

“For all that we are goin’ to ride till our old 
horses drop beneath us,” Gaunt cried. “Two of 
you men take these here bandits down to Marty 
Lingo’s ranch. It’ll take two to handle the damned 
murderers. Marty, you hop on a nag and come 
along with me and kick hell out’n your mount all 
the way.” 

“Say, chief!” Marty said as they galloped down 
the street. “Some of our gang have rode on after 
Tom Drury without knowing the truth. What if 
they catch up with him and pot him?” 

“Catch up with him!” Gaunt broke out in such 
a spasm of laughter that he had to catch onto the 
pommel of his saddle to keep from falling off. 
“The hell of a chance!” 

Marty suddenly joined in the guffaw, crying, 
“When them two Gila monsters meet— zowie!” 

But Gaunt had plunged too far ahead on the 
trail to have any pleasure or enjoyment in any of 
Marty’s further comments. 




CHAPTER XXVI 


drury’s ride 

Tom Drury had followed on the trail of the Gila 
and Jennie Lee at a pace merciless to both man 
and horse. Crater was able to cover twice as much 
ground as the little ponies the Gila used, but in his 
ignorance of the country Drury took a trail twice 
as long. Lengthy detours to inquire the way 
detained him. First he overtook a flockmaster 
bringing home a large herd of sheep. 

“The old Gaunt rancho?” the herder repeated, 
dumfounded. “Ain’t no one rides over to that 
there country these days, mister. The Gila drove 
every peaceful man out’n them parts.” 

“I’m not a peaceful man,” Drury shouted back. 
“Tell me the trail to Gaunt’s ranch or I’ll drag 
you there with me at the end of a lariat.” 

“Over this here hill and down the canon be¬ 
yond,” the herder hurried to answer. “There 
you’ll find a creek which you can cross anywheres, 

being no drop of water has flowed there for three 

280 


DRURY’S RIDE 


281 


years. At the western end of the canon are three 
little mesas. Go south of the first one and there’s 
a mucker’s outfit, cabin and all. From there a 
trail leads across desert country to old Gaunt’s 
cattle run. If you cain’t find it, ax whoever you 
see at the mucker’s outfit. They'll tell you unless 
you’re filled up with lead afore you get there. 
After you get to the Gaunt country you’ll have lead 
bouquets throwed out on you from any cactus big 
enough to hide a man’s shadow-” 

But Drury had wheeled his horse and galloped 
off toward the hill. He heard nothing of the last 
of the herder’s words. 

Sunset brought Crater limping with his rock- 
beaten feet down into the canon creek across a big 
expanse of sand and bowlders, down the slope of 
the canon to the first of the mesas the flockmaster 
had mentioned. Drury galloped up to a little 
shack from which beamed the soft rays of a jack- 
lantern. 

He drew his gun and banged open the door. 

The mucker dropped the shotgun he had taken 
down upon first hearing the sounds of the approach¬ 
ing rider and held up his trembling hands. 

“How do I get to Gaunt’s rancho, stranger? 





282 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Quick to your answer or you’ll ride there with 
me!” 

“It’s west an hour’s ride across the desert,” the 
old man stammered weakly. “And what the hell 
do you be scarin’ a poor ole man for? I ain’t got 
no money! There ain’t no dirt around here you 
could build a tin whistle with. That’s why the 
Gila ain’t got me. You poor cuss! He’ll git you 
all righto if you go across that thar desert.” 

“And when I get across, which trail?” 

“You’ll see some hog-wallows and rollin’ hills!” 
the mucker replied. “That’s Gaunt’s old cattle 
run. Cut straight up the middle of ’em. They 
look like a island in a sea. That’s the place. And 
I’m wishin’ you no bad luck, but I don't expect 
to ever be scared by you bustin’ in on me agin!” 

Drury mounted on the instant, and tearing away 
through the gorge which separated the two north¬ 
ernmost mesas, came out on the horizon of the 
desert. 

Loping and galloping over the big adobe 
stretches, his horse steaming and hot beneath him, 
he reached the rolling prairies of Gaunt’s range. 
The stars came out and twinkled brilliantly, casting 
a blue haze over this gentler landscape and reveal- 




DRURY’S RIDE 


283 


ing the cluster of tiled buildings which constituted 
the Peter Gaunt hacienda. 

Drury reined in his horse. 

This time he could not clatter down past the 
adobe walls and through the portales, banging open 
the door with blustering rashness. Now was the 
time to pause and play his game with utmost can¬ 
niness. Lights winked dimly from the filigreed 
windows of the sala. 

The starlight revealed a single and almost con¬ 
clusive proof that Drury had not ridden here in 
vain: two ponies were standing unsnubbed at the 
gate of the adobe wall. 

Walking his horse down the hill, Drury came to 
the end of the wall. He dismounted. He held 
Crater’s nose, to prevent him from neighing to 
the two ponies, but this precaution was futile. 

The two little pintos, frightened at the appear¬ 
ance of the man and the big horse, shied out into 
the road and then broke away in a canter, their 
hoofs thudding noisily on the old rocky path. 

Without wasting any time, cursing the luck 
which had betrayed his arrival, Drury led his 
horse around the wing of the house, where he was 
in the complete protection of a dark cloister. 




284 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


He was convinced that Crater would champ and 
paw at the flagstone, revealing the presence of his 
master. The best way to avoid this, Drury con¬ 
cluded, was to leave Crater to himself and then to 
continue circling the house alone. At the back he 
might be able to find an entrance. Once inside of 
the house he felt that he would have his antagonist 
at his mercy. 

Accordingly he crept around, keeping constantly 
against the old adobe wall. He came to the patio 
which opened at the rear of the house. He felt 
secure now. Sugg, who had no doubt heard the 
galloping horses, was probably in the front of the 
ranch trying to puzzle out what had happened. 

Drury did not pause a moment. He removed 
that most awkwardly conspicuous part of his attire 
—his sombrero. 

He crept into the patio, darted from arch to 
arch, avoided the dry vines littered across his path, 
and kept as much as possible in the indefinite 
darkness afforded by the old walls. Moonlight 
would have been an easier danger to escape; there 
would have been definite shadows; but the sky, 
now ablaze with stars, cast an intangible glow over 
the little patio, so that Drury felt himself open tG 




DRURY’S RIDE 


285 


view from all sides. If a man had entered the 
courtyard there would have been no safe hiding 
place. 

Presently a man did enter. 

Drury heard the footsteps approaching a door 
which was partly obscured by an overhanging bal¬ 
cony. If some one came out of that balcony Drury 
could not fire without waiting to ascertain who it 
was. On the other hand, he himself could be seen 
almost at a glance. 

As he heard the latch of the door turn he rushed 
toward it. In a leap he caught the rusty iron rails 
which served as a balustrade about the balcony. 
The door opened. 

Drury had swung himself, as if pole-vaulting, 
out of sight on the little ledge above. An owl 
screamed, beat its wings in the intruder’s face, and 
then flopped out into the open, winging into the 
dark. 

Below a grizzled, bearded old Mexican looked 
up, startled, saw the owl, and resumed his walk 
across the flagstone toward the kitchen. In another 
moment he returned bearing jugs. Drury then 
looked for an entrance into the sala. 

A little door led out onto the balcony. He tried 




286 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


it. The lock was rusty. Every move he made 
brought out loud groanings from the old warped 
wood. He held his breath, waited, tried again, 
and gave up. 

Looking over the wall he descried a faint gleam 
of light almost at his feet. A little window with 
rusty filigree of iron opened into the upper part 
of the dining room. Drury realized that his boots 
and spurs could have been seen through that 
grating. 

He stepped back frantically. For a while he 
waited, and the hum of excited but unintelligible 
voices came to him. His feet had been seen, he 
was convinced. By whom, he did not know. 
While waiting breathlessly for a move on the part 
of his enemy, he saw that the little gratelike win¬ 
dow had a counterpart on the other side of the door. 
Light glowed from it. Drury judged that the win¬ 
dow opened into the same room as the other. He 
crept toward it, inch by inch. The voices had been 
hastily silenced. Drury felt that every move he 
made was loud enough to be heard all over the 
patio. 

The nerve-racking moment which Tom endured, 




DRURY’S RIDE 


287 


passing from one window to another, was suddenly 
broken by a woman’s scream. 

Tom abandoned all caution. He fell to his 
hands and knees, and hardly knowing whether or 
not he would stare into the muzzle of a gun, he 
put his head down to the filigree of iron and 
peered through. 

He looked directly down into the sala. He saw 
the long oaken table, the Mission chairs, the jugs 
of wine and the steaming dishes. 

Jennie Lee was in front of an overturned chair. 
The Mexican servant was with her. That was all 
Tom could see of the room. 




CHAPTER XXVII 


STARLIGHT AND SPURS 

When Sugg had first heard the sound of horses’ 
hoofs beating on the rocky road in front of the 
ranch, he felt at first a surge of anger sweeping 
over him. His game was being thwarted—and at 
the last minute. He realized that he had given 
himself away as the Gila. There was no longer 
any possibility of his posing as a respected citizen 
and a Vigilante. First the girl knew him, and 
now this old servant, Domingo. Peter Gaunt, Tom 
Drury and the rest would be on his trail as soon 
as they found out what had happened to Jennie 
Lee. His only move now was to cross the border 
with the girl and forever leave the range over which 
he had ruled. In fact, he regretted now that he 
had ever stopped at the Gaunt ranch, even for the 
all-important meal before the long ride. 

Domingo came in crawling, frightened at the 

new impatience of his master. Sugg ordered him 

288 


STARLIGHT AND SPURS 


289 


to stay in the room, watch the girl, and under no 
condition let her leave the table. Sugg rushed out 
onto the veranda, with gun drawn, fully expecting 
to meet a horseman galloping into the garden. 
What he saw surprised him—and relieved him. 

The complacent smile came back to his mouth. 
He felt again that he was complete master of the 
place. Half a furlong down the road he saw his 
two ponies cantering away into the darkness. 
After all, the terrifying sound of hoofbeats had 
only been caused by his own ponies. This inci¬ 
dent was no longer significant. He cared no more 
for the wornout mounts. He expected Domingo to 
supply him with fresh ones. 

What had scared them he did not know. He 
looked up and down the road carefully, and could 
see no trace of man or beast. With a shrug of his 
shoulder and a satisfying conjecture that some 
coyote had probably frightened the two pintos, he 
returned to the house. 

Jennie was again plunged into despair at the 
suave grin on Sugg’s face. There had been no 
fight, no shooting; scarcely two minutes had 
elapsed, two minutes of nervous tension, waiting 
for the sound of guns. 




290 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“Our mounts took it into their heads to gallop 
off into the sage. Those were the hoofbeats you 
heard!” Sugg laughed. “We are alone, you and 
I and the Mex, and twenty miles of desert all about 
us. So we might as well enjoy our little supper 
in peace.” 

The servant opened up the husks of the steaming 
tamales, poured the purple wine, and hobbled out. 

Disregarding the girl’s refusal to touch food or 
wine, Sugg fell to his dish ravenously. A gulp of 
wine, and he paused in his eating to stare at the 
statuesque figure before him. 

“There is little use of your starving yourself, 
senorita! To-morrow, when we are trailing south 
over the deserts of mesquite, you will feel sick and 

irritable. Drink with me. Enjoy life—and-” 

He paused in the middle of the sentence and the 
twinkling cajolery left his face. 

Jennie turned her head, as if she had heard 
again a: single call—a cry or a bugle, or the sound 
of a charge which meant deliverance. But this 
time it was indistinct and unintelligible. She 
thought she heard the champing of a horse. She 
visualized a big black pacer, impatient at the 
deathlike silence of the night outside. 






STARLIGHT AND SPURS 


291 


“It’s these shutters banging in the wind,” Sugg 
laughed, taking another gulp of wine. “Come on 
and eat. The journey before us is long and tiring. 
By all means drink some of this Juarez! It’s 
wonderful.” 

But Sugg did not finish his own cup of wine. 
His tamale, which was half eaten, lay open, spicy, 
cooling; the pungent chili sauce glazed over with 
grease. Something had taken away Sugg’s appe¬ 
tite, so that it was as impossible for him to eat as 
it was for the girl. Also it was as impossible for 
him to drink any more wine as for a mad dog to 
drink water. 

He had seen a man in the patio coming through 
the arches. He looked up. The servant emerged 
from the darkness; he appeared behind the girl, 
full in the soft glow of the candlelight. 

“Did you just come in from the kitchen, 
hombre?” 

“Yes, senor.” 

The Gila shrugged his shoulders again and 
gulped wine. Jennie could see that it was partly 
a shudder. 

“Go out and get us some more of this.” 

The servant disappeared. As he walked down 




292 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


the patio Sugg stared at his crooked old back and 
his hobbling gait. An owl fluttered out into the 
patio and winged its way over the frightened 
Domingo’s head. 

Jennie looked up at the little filigreed window 
which opened from the roof of the sala. In a 
glance she had a curious impression of starlight 
and spurs. 

Sugg looked up at her, bore into her with his 
sharp, narrowed eyes, and then fell again to eat¬ 
ing. This time, Jennie noticed, he was only pre¬ 
tending to eat. A terrific fear had gripped Sugg. 
He felt as if beset on every side by presences. 

Sounds stirred, shadows lurked and moved with 
the wagging of the candle flames. The only high 
point of light was the girl’s face, and across it 
there flitted continually a gleam, elflike, mocking. 
Sugg felt sure that his mortal enemy had come, 
had entered the house, was perhaps lurking in 
some dark corner from which at any moment there 
would come a streak of white light, a deafening 
fire. 

He looked around, no longer trying to hide the 
apprehension written on his blanched face—the 
gray lips, the wet forehead, the widened eyes. He 





STARLIGHT AND SPURS 


293 


scrutinized every corner of the big sala, the raft¬ 
ers, the windows, the musty old drapery in the 
corner, the crucifix, the pitch-black doors. From 
a dozen different places the onslaught might come. 

A moment of maddening silence. The Mexican 
hobbled back across the patio, opened the door, 
and entered. 

Sugg jumped from his seat and dashed to him. 

44 What’s the matter, maestro? What has 
happened?” 

44 Did you see an owl out there in the patio?” 
Sugg asked. 

The Mexican looked up at the distorted face. 
Was it possible that the Gila was afraid of an owl? 
The Gila, who had never shown fear even when 
fighting a dozen men! 

4< An owl came from the eaves of the house, 
senor, and flew over my head. It is a bad owl, 
sefior, and keeps me awake at night with its hoot¬ 
ing. When it returns in the morning I will find 
its nest of owlets up in the eaves and have done 
with them.” 

“It does not matter,” the Gila said. “I do not 
believe in omens.” 

He turned and looked again at the table, the 




294 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


pungent dinner, the beautiful girl whose face was 
still lit with that new elfin smile. He was afraid 
to go back into the light. He let the servant take 
the jug to the table and pour more of the purple 
Juarez into the master’s cup. 

Sugg resolved firmly he would not go back to 
that table. He was thoroughly convinced that Tom 
Drury was in hiding, ready to hurl his revolver 
shots at any time he saw fit. If the fight would 
only start, Sugg thought to himself, the suspense 
would be broken; there would still be a little of 
his nerve left to fight back. But it was this terrific 
expectation that was breaking him, an expectation 
of death leaping at him out of the darkness. 

Sugg determined that if he never found out 
anything else in his whole life, he would at least 
find out now where that gunshot was coming from. 
If he could only discover that, with impunity, the 
spell of fear would be broken. He would be able 
to pick a point of advantage, and at any rate carry 
on the duel with half a chance of success. Think¬ 
ing of a plan by which he could make Drury fire 
and reveal himself, he called the servant to him. 

“Look here, Domingo,” he said, drawing him 
into the vestibule, “I am going away into Mexico 




STARLIGHT AND SPURS 


295 


to-night, and with me I will take this woman. You 
have been a faithful henchman of mine, and I owe 
you much, especially since all the other servants 
of old Peter Gaunt left this place, whereas you 
stayed, pretending loyalty to Gaunt.” 

“It is to you I have been faithful, maestro,” 
Domingo replied, groveling. 

“And I am going to reward you,” Sugg 
answered. “I will give you money, but above that 
I will give you a reward that no other of your 
fellow servants could ever dream of attaining. 
That woman was once your mistress, as a child. 
Now that she is grown to beautiful womanhood she 
can’t help but inspire an adoration in your old 
carcass—an adoration, not only of a servant for a 
mistress, but of an old Mexican renegade, who has 
been drinking a little too freely, for a beautiful 
woman-” 

“Or of a devotee for a saint, senor.” 

“Now what the hell! You don’t get my point 
at all. As a parting gift to you I am going to let 
you have one single reverent kiss. Go out and 
claim it now of that beautiful senorita.” 

The Mexican’s eyes glowed with delight. 

“But, then, maestro,” he objected, “she knows 






296 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


that I have not been faithful to her father. She 
will not let me kiss her. She will repulse me.” 

“Perhaps. That is the most agreeable part of a 
kiss—the struggle with the woman who refuses 
you.” 

“But if I struggle, maestro, you will-” 

“I will do nothing. I will stand here and laugh 
to myself and say, ‘Good for Domingo, the old 
cowdog! To-night old Domingo is being born 
again! He is a youth, with the wine-heated blood 
of youth in his veins.’ ” 

“And the money, sehor?” the avaricious old 
Mexican hinted. 

“Yes, yes, dammit! I will give you any sum. 
But it will seem ridiculous compared to this reward 
you are to claim of the sehorita.” 

Domingo stepped out of the darkness of the little 
vestibule and went to the table where Jennie was 
sitting. 

“I am sorry that you are going away in the 
morning, sehorita,” he said. 

She looked up at him, surprised at the sudden 
absence of servility in his voice. 

“I am not going away,” she retorted coolly. 

“But the maestro says you are, and I am sorry 





STARLIGHT AND SPURS 


297 


that you did not come home to the scenes of your 
childhood to stay.” 

6 1 have come to stay, and I don’t want you here 
talking to me. Go away.” 

64 1 will not go away, senorita,” he said with a 
smiling assurance. 

She raised her eyebrows, startled, and paled 
slightly at the look of defiance in the servant’s 
face. 

“Look here—why are you standing there grin¬ 
ning? What do you want? I have no reason to 
talk to you. Go away, I said.” 

“The maestro has given me something as a 
favor, something which is beyond price-” 

“Who is your master?” 

“The man who-” Domingo checked himself. 

He realized that the girl had tried to corner him 
and make him admit that he had forsaken her 
grandfather for the service of the Gila. “Senor 
Peter Gaunt, the American—he is my master.” 

“If you won’t go away, at least don’t stand up 
there and tell me lies. Your master is the Gila! 
If you had been a faithful servant of my grand¬ 
father’s you would have killed this man who has 
brought me here against my will.” 








298 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


“This man has been good to me. He has prom¬ 
ised me a reward which is greater than a reward 
of money. And I have come now to claim it.” 

“What are you talking about? You must have 
been filching some of this Juarez which is part of 
our stock. Are you drunk? What is it you 
want?” 

“A kiss, senorita.” 

She screamed and jumped up. The chair fell 
over. 

The Mexican reached across the table and 
caught her arm. 

“A kiss, it is mine! It has been promised me! 
I will have it!” 

She struck him full in the face, so that he 
recoiled, abashed. 

“Then you think you will fight me?” he cried. 
“You think you are better than old Domingo 
because I was like a peon for many years to old 
Gaunt. You think you are better because you are 
white and a gringo. No, you are no better than 
Domingo. You are a slave now to the Gila. From 
now on you are the same as Domingo, who is a 
servant. You are-” 

He never finished the big speech he was utter- 





STARLIGHT AND SPURS 


299 


ing. In the very climax of it a terrific bang and 
the whiff of gunpowder drowned his last words and 
thoughts. 

He fell forward, lying face downward among 
the scattered dishes. 

Sugg did not watch the Mexican sink on the 
boards. He watched the little filigreed window 
which emitted the sharp flash of the revolver. He 
had played a preliminary move which gave him 
the advantage he had lost. He was now ready to 
fight. 




CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE CRATER BLOWS UP 

When Tom Drury looked down into the sala from 
the balcony, he realized that the chances of the 
duel favored the Gila for the moment. The two 
men, although unable to see each other, were no 
longer in the dark. 

Tom jumped up from the window, still bearing 
in his mind the fleeting glimpse he had had of 
that scene: the circle of candlelight, the white¬ 
faced girl, the Mexican tumbled across the table. 
He also caught sight of the streaks of light which 
had been hurled up at his little window from a 
dark corridor. 

The bullets spattered the adobe window sill just 
as he leaped away. 

To peep through that window again would mean 
certain death, and he knew it. He waited. 

The Gila concluded that his enemy had no inten¬ 
tion of exposing himself again, at least not in front 

of the window. A moment’s wait, and he decided 

300 


THE CRATER BLOWS UP 


301 


to run into the patio where he would have a clear 
view of Tom on the balcony. He paused, directly 
under the arch of the door through which he was 
passing, as a man who is about to take a high dive 
pauses before the final leap. It would be a danger¬ 
ous move, fatal unless executed practically with 
one stroke: a dash out into the open, a sudden 
turn, and then the fire. 

But Tom, in that second of hesitation, had 
guessed the Gila’s move. 

He leaned over the balcony. Instead of firing 
haphazard as the Gila leaped out into the open, he 
threw himself with all his weight upon Sugg’s 
shoulders. The unexpectedness of this assault, 
upon a man who had been expecting a gun duel, 
brought him smashing to the ground, his gun gone, 
his enemy raining merciless blows upon his head, 
mouth and temple. 

Twisting convulsively, like a trapped puma, 
Sugg scrambled to his feet and ripped out viciously 
at Drury’s head. Drury had lost his gun in his 
leap, and he tore in now for the sort of fist fight 
he loved. 

At this stage of the fight Jennie Lee ran out into 
the patio. 




302 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


The scene which met her eyes was not one of 
horror, as she expected. Instead it was the glori¬ 
ous combat of two giant men, one fighting to en¬ 
slave her, the other fighting to free her and give 
her back her lost home. Both men were unarmed, 
both fighting for their lives in a primitive combat, 
every move of which thrilled her to a hysteria of 
excitement. Every blow which thudded into her 
lover’s jaw was like a blow upon her own body, 
and every smash that was returned on the heart, 
the neck, the mouth of her enemy, brought a cry, 
almost a scream of triumph from her choking 
throat. 

Shielding himself for a moment from the ter¬ 
rific sledge-hammer blows of his antagonist, the 
Gila suddenly shot up a miraculous cut which 
caught Drury on the jaw. He sank to his knees. 
He felt a bony hand crash into the side of his head, 
sending him spinning to the earth in a perplexing 
flurry of light. 

The Gila sprang back. Finding himself momen¬ 
tarily free of another assault, he dropped to the 
ground and groped for his revolver. 

As his hand found it, Drury came to himself. 
He saw what had happened and leaped wildly on 




THE CRATER BLOWS UP 


303 


the Gila just as the latter had regained his feet and 
turned to fire. 

The gun barked out into the empty air. For a 
moment Sugg lost the balance and technique of 
the fist fight; he felt Drury’s huge fist crash into 
his mouth. He reeled back and fired again, 
blindly. 

But for that one stunning blow Sugg would not 
have fired so foolishly into the air, like a drunken 
buckaroo shooting up a town. His last bullet gone, 
he whirled forward madly, swinging his arms, 
reaching frantically at the great figure which 
loomed between him and the stars. 

Another blow, and a drunken, pleasant feeling 
came to Sugg at the base of his brain. He felt 
the bone and flesh and fist against his teeth. There 
was a shock, a curious vision, unaccompanied by 
any semblance of pain, as of some one who had 
come to slay him with his own jawbone. 

He was lying face upward on the flagstones 
and greasewood. The stars shone in a soft whirl¬ 
pool of decreasing speed. A huge form was 
standing above him. Yes, he remembered, it was 
Tom Drury who had come to save the woman. 




304 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Drury would kill him. He could do it now with 
his bare hands. 

Sugg’s mind cleared. At all hazards he must 
get up and run, or else that form would pounce 
upon him. For a moment he waited, holding his 
breath as a man in a nightmare; then he stared 
around. He felt his strength coming back, and 
with it the consolation that the stars had stopped 
their whirling, and the flagstones their rocking 
under him. He turned from the nightmare which 
still hovered over him, and found himself facing 
the open patio. 

Drury moved a step closer. The Gila sank 
again to the flagstone, as if unable to get up. It 
occurred to him that Drury was only waiting for 
him to get to his feet before finishing him. While 
he lay prostrate, still pretending that he was down 
and out, a plan formulated. At the open end of 
the patio he saw a horse. It was Crater, the damn¬ 
able beast that had started Sugg’s fear fit by 
champing just outside the walls of the dining 
room. 

“And yet he is an unbeatable horse,” Sugg 
thought. “Drury will never catch me if I get on 
him in time.” 




THE CRATER BLOWS UP 


305 


Suddenly he bolted. He ran at first low to the 
ground, then leaping up like a man in a sprint, 
hurdling the fountain, and dashing to the open end 
of the patio. 

Drury picked up his gun and followed. 

What happened then was by the dim glow of the 
starlight. It was evident to both Drury and Jennie 
that Sugg had caught the reins of the big black 
gelding and was trying to mount. It was also 
evident that Crater objected to the advances of this 
rider. 

Sugg realized the danger of trying to mount the 
horse, but he had no other alternative. The big 
gelding struck out at him viciously with his fore¬ 
feet. It did not deter Sugg from his purpose. He 
knew something about outlaw horses; he took a 
flying tackle at the pommel without pausing to 
gather the reins. 

He found himself in the saddle, gathering in 
the slack before Crater had had time to know what 
was happening. 

The big bucker stood snorting for a moment, 
and then leaped up into the air in the first move of 
his sunfishing tactics. 

It was a move which Drury knew would be 




306 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


simple and easy until he came down again. When 
he saw that the horse had made up his mind to 
give this new rider a fight, Drury calmly replaced 
his revolver in the holster and called to Jennie. 

“Crater is fighting for us,” he cried, “and he’s 
the greatest outlaw of them all! Look at that high 
dive!” 

The big gelding twisted in the air and thundered 
down on his forefeet, so that Sugg felt his ribs 
crash into the saddle horn. His head began to 
rock, and his mouth to bleed. With another con¬ 
vulsive twist the man-killing horse sent his rider 
half out of the saddle. 

Sugg grabbed frantically for the pommel as he 
jolted back into his seat. It was as if he had 
landed on a catapult. Crater stood still, and the 
rider, two of his ribs already broken, his back 
throbbing as if some one had “cracked the whip” 
with his spine, hurtled out of the seat. 

He struck against the comfortable eternal 
oblivion of the wall. 




CHAPTER XXIX 


“well, that settles it!” 

Tom Drury and Jennie walked back into the patio 
together. The feeling of the air had suddenly 
changed as precipitously as the oppressive murki¬ 
ness changes after a terrific cyclone. 

From the girl’s point of view the ranch itself 
seemed to have changed. The blue monotone of 
the starlight created a picture, not of hideous dark 
walls, broken tiling, and staring eyelike windows. 
The ranch was transformed almost miraculously 
into a place of serene beauty. 

There were still the dilapidation, the broken 
shutters, the littered vines. But it was not a dilap¬ 
idation of hopelessness. It was the same old place, 
its wreckage obscured by the misty light and beau¬ 
tified. In Jennie Lee’s heart the place which had 
but a few moments before been under a hideous 
spell, was now born again, as in the old Indian 
legends when mountains and cities were under the 

domination of the Cold Hand and Bad Mind. The 

307 


308 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


hills were freed of the Thunder God, the “years 
which the locusts had eaten” were restored to her! 

She breathed in deeply of the old beloved fra¬ 
grance, the desert wind laden with its mesquite, 
the nearer spicy odor of the pepperwood, the bay, 
the madrone trees. This and the tremendous relief 
after the tension of the past hour, brought the tears 
streaming down her face. 

She turned to the big cowboy and cried: 

“What can I give you in return for this?” 

There was no reward greater for Tom Drury 
than that he should be present at this glorious 
moment when she again found her home. 

He did not immediately answer her question. 
“Weep for joy. Weep all you want!” he said at 
length. “The home is yours, and there is no one 
who will molest you here again. It’s not only the 
Gila whose account is settled, but his whole gang. 
The two living members of his gang are taken 
prisoners.” 

“Then the range is free!” she cried. “And your 
reward! What reward is it that you want for what 
you have done?” 

She saw that he hesitated. 

In the silence they both heard a distant rumble, 




“WELL, THAT SETTLES IT!’ S 


309 


which increased to a steady undertone, growing 
louder with the climax of their own talk. 

“You said you had come out here for a bigger 
career,” she went on. “For the kind of job that 
takes bigger, stronger men. You will be foreman 
here. I will tell grandpa that—but what a pitiable 
reward for what you have done. You must ask 
more than that. That is not enough.” 

“There is a reward,” he answered. “A reward 
I have hoped for; but now that the time has come 
for me to tell you of my desire, it seems too great 
a thing to ask.” 

“Nothing is too great, nothing too audacious.” 

“I could not have done any of it without you,” 
he replied. “It was you who saved me from that 
band of riders that you hear now galloping toward 
us.” 

“It’s my grandfather and his posse. They fell 
into the trap the Gila had set for them. They are 
stern men, quick in their judgment, ready to kill 
without a second thought. I understood them. I 
saved you from them, but that was nothing com¬ 
pared to your deeds-” 

“Then if I can stay here as your foreman for 
a while, and the place is fixed up again with the 






310 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


fountains playing, the fields green, the herds again 
roaming over the range—and I am no longer a 
stranger to you or to Peter Gaunt—then I will say 
what I have desired to say from the first. And 
then you will be able to give an answer.” 

As the posse thundered down the road she 
replied quickly: 

“I am able to give an answer now. I know. I 
put my trust in you when, in the eyes of every one, 
you were the bandit they sought. I knew you then, 
and I was right when they were all wrong. I know 
you now. There is no other proof needed of your 
worth.” 

“You know I love you. I want you for my 

wife—but-” He paused and tightened his grip 

on her two hands. The posse clattered into the 
court. “How about-” 

“My grandfather?” 

“He will not give you to a stranger-” 

“He will think as I think and do as I wish. Ask 
him.” 

They walked through the house to the front 
court, where the riders were dismounting and rush¬ 
ing up to the veranda. 

Having no assurance but that the posse was still 











“WELL, THAT SETTLES IT!” 


311 


after him, dead or alive, Drury snapped out his 
revolver to defend himself. 

“Don’t throw that gun, Drury! Don’t throw it 
on us!” old Gaunt cried. “We got the whole dope 
straight. Marty Lingo told us. Come here, gal!” 
He held out his arms. “You been through the hell 
of a time. Tell me what’s happened!” 

“Henry Sugg won’t bother us any more!” she 
replied. “He tried to ride Crater and was thrown. 
His head hit against the wall.” 

“Where is he?” 

“At the end of the patio. The fall killed him.” 

A gasp of relief went out from every man. The 
posse clattered up to the veranda. 

“Then the range is cleaned out proper!” Gaunt 
cried. “We got the rest of the Gila’s gang back 
to Lingo’s ranch.” 

“There’s nothing more to be afraid of, grandpa. 
The place is ours. We’re home—and home to 
stay.” 

“Blowfly Jones, you go and tend to the Gila.” 

“And to Domingo,” Drury added. “He was 
giving the girl a little trouble. He’s in the sala at 
the dinner-table, where his trouble started.” 

“Looke here, Mr. Puncher-hoy,” Gaunt said to 






312 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


Drury. “We made the hell of a mistake regarding 
you, and, further and more, we owe you somethin’ 
aside from apologies!” 

“I’m to be foreman here,” he replied quietly. 

“Who the hell told you that? It’s my ranch— 
not youm!” 

“The girl told me.” 

“All right, that settles it!” the old chief snapped 
back. He turned to his posse: “Boys, this here 
cow-gentleman standin’ before you is to be fore¬ 
man of the ranch. Now you men come in. We 
ain’t none of us et all day and our horses are 
gauntin’ with hunger and thirst. Two of you men 
shag into the chuckhouse and fix us up a meal. 
Two of you scout around for what’s left of my old 
Juarez stock. Damned if we won’t celebrate till 
we all get roarin’!” 

The posse broke out into loud whoops and 
laughter. 

“The rest of you tend to your mounts,” Gaunt 
interrupted. “If you have to walk home you won’t 
be whoopin’ her up so loud.” 

“And light all the candles in the house,” cried 
Jennie. “Let the place come to life again as it 
was in the old round-up days.” 




“WELL, THAT SETTLES IT!” 


313 


“We’ll light the old place up like a church!” 
one of the boys shouted. “And ourselves too!” 

“It’s to be an engagement supper!” Jennie cried 
excitedly. 

“Where do you get that!” Gaunt cried. “En¬ 
gagement supper? What the-” 

“Tom Drury and I,” she said. 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” 

“Mr. Peter Gaunt, I—I want to ask for the hand 
of your gal-” Tom stammered. 

Gaunt turned to his granddaughter, his face red¬ 
dening. Whether his uncomfortable condition was 
due to surprise, anger, or apoplexy, was not 
evident. 

“What are you handin’ me, gal—engagement 
supper! Do you mean to stand there and tell 
me-” 

“Tom Drury is asking you for my hand.” 

“Mr. Puncher-boy, you stick around as my 
foreman for a few years-” 

Marty Lingo interrupted. 

“What the Sam Hill do you think you’re goin’ 
to do with them two lovers, keepin’ ’em apart for 
a few years? Can you beat that, men! He wants 
this here buckaroo to stick around and punch his 









314 


RIDE HIM, COWBOY 


cattle, like in the Ole Testament Jacob’s uncle 
made him punch up his drags for six years before 
he could have a look-in with the gal he wanted to 
marry!” 

“Marty, rather than have you give us a speech 
like you did in co’t this afternoon, I’ll consent to 
anything. Boys, congratulate this here buckaroo 
and the gal. Bein’ as she’s made up her mind and 
nothin’ I can do has ever yet unmade it, I hereby 
give my consent to the fact that we call this here 
approaching feast an engagement supper!” 

The men broke out in a whooping cheer. They 
accompanied old Gaunt, Tom Drury and his 
fiancee into the house, and soon the place was 
aglow with candles and echoing with shouts, 
laughter, and the merry jingle of spurs. 


THE END 


LRBJe?8 




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